Spark
by Prime Spinosaur
Summary: It has been years since the War of the Spark. That the consequences of Nicol Bolas and the Gatewatch's actions have already started to echo across the Multiverse. Sealed away in the Prison Realm with his brother, Ugin the Spirit Dragon puts his hope to save the Multiverse in a girl who has found his Spirit-Gem. A girl named Taylor Hebert.
1. Wake 0-1

**Spark**

**Wake 0.1**

The Spirit Dragon counted down the years of his brother, the mortal dragon's life. Though brought down, humiliated, his power, his immortality, his very name taken from him, the mortal dragon was still very much a dragon. They had been in what was now called the Prison Realm for over thirty years, waiting for the mortal dragon to finally expire.

The mortal dragon was withered now, skin sunken in, boney, one of his inward horns had cracked off, much to the humiliation of the mortal dragon. Once his very symbol, now shattered. His left wing hadn't healed properly and twitched, or simply rested in awkward positions. The mortal dragon's long ears were drooped as his long neck craned his head downward into the pools of water he stood atop as though they were solid ground. The mortal dragon looked at his reflection, his golden-green skin had started to lose it's color, turning to a sickly yellow-grey. The mortal dragon shook with anger at his very visage, he was once the most powerful being in the multiverse and now he couldn't even maintain himself. He roared in frustration, rearing back his claws, bones popping before slashing at the water which did nothing but make a splash. The Spirit Dragon noted that his prisoner winced in pain.

Arthritis, thought The Spirit Dragon. Some days he wondered if the only thing keeping his brother alive was pure spite.

Though now his thoughts rarely went to the mortal dragon, The Spirit Dragon was thinking about the multiverse outside of this prison realm. He thought about Tarkir, the plane he'd dedicated so much time to, that the mortal dragon had ruined. The Spirit Dragon wondered if his emissary, Sarkhan Vol would be able to change it, to bring balance back to the plane. If he hadn't already, it was unlikely that he ever would. For all he knew Sarkhan Vol was dead, or at the least, was in his twilight years.

Then there was the Eldrazi, another problem The Spirit Dragon's brother had caused by trampling over his achievements. The Gatewatch hadn't listened to him, and hadn't sealed the Eldrazi away, killing two of the three titans. What were the effects going to be on the greater Multiverse as a whole? Whatever it was, the effects must be felt now, and he was stuck in here being a jailor to his egotistical brother.

_You certainly made a mess of things, brother_, The Spirit Dragon projected these words through telepathy. The mortal dragon just growled, muttering under his breath. The Spirit Dragon heard it clear as day.

"I would have cleaned it after I had achieved my goal," the mortal dragon muttered.

_Had you achieved your goal, you would've been too powerful to care for the consequences,_ The Spirit Dragon retorted back. _The Multiverse is a worse off place because of you and what you've done. I could be out fixing these problems, but no. I'm stuck here, as your jailor. _The mortal dragon growled.

"Then why don't you kill me and be done with it?" the mortal dragon asked. "You've taken everything from me, humiliated me, left me broken. There's nothing left but to simply kill me."

There was a long silence. The mortal dragon was a pathological liar, but The Spirit Dragon had to wonder if this was the first time that there was something genuine in what he said. Did his brother truly want to die? He'd completely withered, and emotionally regressed. Where before he was all knowing, powerful, cool, collected, now he was alike to the same hatchling that he had twinned out of the same egg with again. Angry and afraid of everything.

He wondered if it would be better to kill his brother here and now. End his brother's suffering, and go back to being the guardian of the Multiverse.

"Do it," the mortal dragon sneered, "if I'm that insignificant to you, _brother_, then you waste your time every moment that I draw breath." The Spirit Dragon didn't respond. "Do it!" The mortal dragon roared.

_No,_ The Spirit Dragon responded. _I will not be goaded into killing you. Wretched as you are, I am not like you. I had no intent to kill my own brother. Don't think that I don't know what you're playing at, you hope to be killed so you have a chance to come back stronger._

"Like I have anything, I don't even have my spark, my very soul's power, I can never again be a planeswalker," said the mortal dragon. "I'm…" The words died on the mortal dragon's mouth. The Spirit Dragon, if he had a condensed physical from at the moment would have turned. He knew the inflections. It was from their first moments alive.

_I'm Stuck. _The Spirit Dragon heard the words inside his brother's mind. His very first words. He wondered if, had their misfortune upon birth never happened, would the mortal dragon have become what he had? The Spirit Dragon rarely gave the first moments of their life thought, but he was not the one who came out with a broken wing, trapped under a tree. Watching their sister be murdered in front of them. The mortal dragon had obsessed over this event in his life, The Spirit Dragon had let his mind go about to other things and didn't even bother to really discuss what had happened with his brother.

The somber note was interrupted. The Spirit Dragon spread his awareness back to the Spirit Gem back in the mortal multiverse. The gem had been taken and shrunk down to the size of a chicken's egg and hidden on a plane that nobody would go look for it in. He'd checked on it periodically, it had been thrown into a river on a plane that planeswalkers very rarely visited. It was a large plane, with a massive amount of mundanity to it, there was no magic on Earth, for whatever reason, whether it had been stomped out or it's arts had never been taught. Though the idea of the supernatural did exist there, but simply as a mythology.

He saw the white rocks of a riverbank, surrounded by oaks and evergreens, and looking down at the gem was a human child. She was rather skinny for her kind, though not out of malnutrition as far as he could tell. She seemed cheerful, dark hair in two braids, a bright blue shirt with an unrecognizable logo, she was tanned from long time in the sun.

The golden oval shaped sphere was in a sense, a gateway to the meditation realm now turned prison realm. The Spirit Dragon though had cut off the world almost entirely from the rest of the world, picking up the gem would only allow it's wielder to psychically project into the Prison Realm, not actually be there. _Even then_, thought Spirit Dragon, only someone with a spark would be able to actually wield it.

She touched the gem, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she crumpled to the ground.

Then she appeared in the center of the pools, giving a loud audible gasp, her form was see-through but even as she took a step back at the sight of the mortal dragon, ripples waved out from her steps. The Spirit Dragon's thoughts came to a screeching halt. This had not been an outcome that he would've predicted. There was one spark carrier for every million individuals, and one had just happened upon the Spirit-Gem.

The mortal dragon craned his neck over and growled.

"Is this one of your tricks, brother?" he growled as he started to raise himself, moving on all fours he moved closer to the girl, who started to run. The mortal dragon chased after her, with the flap of his wings he came off the ground, and flapped awkwardly, before his lame wing brought him crashing down some thirty feet away, in front of the girl. His landing was clumsy, as he moved to go swipe at the girl, who cowered, covering herself, only for his bony claws to pass right through. The mortal dragon roared in frustration and the girl scrambled on her back to get away.

_You cannot hurt her, brother, _the Spirit Dragon's voice echoed throughout the Prison Realm in both of their minds, the girl glanced from side to side, trying to find the source of the sound before clasping at her ears. _She is not actually here; this is only a residual image of her mind. You no longer have the magics to touch her mind. _The mortal dragon gave a low rumbling growl as suddenly, from the pools, the water started to glow blue-green and take shape, twisting to make the form of the Spirit Dragon. The girl stared in wonder and fear as this ghostly dragon appeared before her. A lithe dragon, like his brother, his horns jutting outward instead of inward, his snout was longer and didn't have an almost human quality to it. Instead of long pointed ears The Spirit Dragon had a thin cobra like hood. He stretched his feathered wings out and glanced down at the girl. The mortal dragon left, limping away towards his own end of the pool.

_Who are you? _The Spirit Dragon asked the child. The girl sputtered for an answer, trembling, all of this must've been hard for her to take in. The Spirit Dragon was patient though as the girl finally gave her answer.

"Taylor," she said. "Where am I? What is this place?"

_Taylor_, the Spirit Dragon repeated. _I am Ugin, and your mind is currently within the Prison Realm, made to keep my brother trapped away for the rest of his days._

"Prison Realm?!" Taylor quailed. "I didn't do anything, why am I trapped here?"

_You touched the Spirit-Gem, an item of mine, which links directly to this realm. _Said Ugin.

"I'm sorry," said Taylor, very small, "I'll put it back, I promise! Just please let me go."

_Calm down,_ The Spirit Dragon sighed, _You're not actually in the Prison Realm. Your mind has been projected into it. Your body is still at the river, thankfully the tide is low and you were still on the shore, otherwise, you might've drowned by now._ Taylor gulped at that. _I will send your mind back in just a moment, you will leave and not come back to this place. _Taylor nodded. _Do not touch the Spirit-Gem again, do not speak of it to anyone. _

"Understood," said Taylor, she sounded like a child who'd gotten in trouble, she stopped to think for a moment, "but maybe you should get moved, so that nobody else in my camping group finds you. Is it possible for me to pick you up and not…come here?" Ugin craned his head to the side to look at Taylor closer.

_An apt point, _said Ugin. _Will you bury the gem for me? _ Taylor nodded. She looked around at the meditation plane, at the blue tinted sky and the high mountain tops.

"Nobody else lives here?" asked Taylor. Ugin shook his head.

_Just me and my brother. The whole plane is empty. _Said Ugin. Taylor tilted her head.

"I never thought I'd get to see one of the other Earths," said Taylor.

_No, this is not Earth, _said Ugin, _and what do you mean by 'other Earths'?_

"Oh," Taylor looked to the side awkwardly, she clearly didn't want to annoy Ugin as she spoke. "Well, it's just there's multiple Earths, like I'm from Earth Bet."

_And these Earths are identical to your own plane?_ Asked Ugin. Taylor thought for a moment.

"Well, the big difference between Earth Bet and Earth Aleph is that Earth Aleph doesn't have superheroes, they never showed up thirty years ago so everything's different there," said Taylor.

_'Superheroes'?_ asked Ugin.

"People who have powers, like, lifting cars…you don't know what a car is, so I guess like flying, or shooting laser beams, or just doing everything," said Taylor. Ugin paused, according to her, this started thirty years ago, which would line up with…

This required further investigation. Which he couldn't do because of his current position as jailor. He looked down at Taylor, inspecting her. While there was not a lick of magic on her, she had a latent spark, she had potential.

Perhaps he'd found his proxy.

_Taylor, was it? _Said Ugin. She quickly nodded. Clearly not wanting to piss off the hundred-foot-tall ghost dragon. _I've had a change of heart. I'd like to make a deal with you._

"Mister Ugin, my dad would be very miffed if I gave my soul to a ghost dragon," said Taylor. Ugin heard a snort and slight snicker off in the corner of the pools where the mortal dragon was.

_Nothing like that, _Ugin said, his voice slightly flat. _It seems you won't have to bury my gem because I want you to keep it. I'll teach you the way to come and leave the Prison Realm without my help. _

"Wow, I guess I'm friends with a dragon now," said Taylor. "Can I tell my friend, Emma?"

_No. _Taylor flinched. Ugin sighed again. _This is meant to be a secret prison for him._ Ugin emphasized by nudging his head towards his brother. _If more people know about it, the more likely it is that he will get out. _Taylor nodded, understanding. Ugin thanked his progenitor that his brother's first reaction to another person had been to throw a tantrum and not to try and win them over with guile. The first impression was everything and the mortal dragon had not made a good one on Taylor. _But while I am in your possession, I want you to bring me more information about your world and these…superheroes._

"Okay," said Taylor, meekly agreeing. Ugin straightened himself out.

_And in return,_ he then knelt down to Taylor, _I will teach you magic._


	2. Wake 0-2

**Wake 0.2**

To call Earth Bet mundane was an absolute insult to the marvel it had become in a thousand years. Ugin had not since had the time to visit the many planes after reawakening from his death like slumber on the plane of Tarkir. Earth had become a technological marvel that would make planes like Kaladesh jealous. What they lacked in magic, they made up for in their advances in machinery. The digital technology was what marveled Ugin the most, it was a network of information databases, where information could be posted, seen by others, peer reviewed by others and spread across. It had accumulated into a large mass of information.

Suddenly what had originally been just a quest to learn more about these superheroes had become a more daunting task. Originally, Taylor Hebert had been more enthusiastic about the prospect of teaching Ugin about superheroes, but now she was quiet, sleepless, more somber.

The gem wasn't on him when she went to go visit her friend after summer camp, but Taylor had come back, tears in her eyes, and hadn't talked with Ugin for a few days. He observed as she would hesitantly reach towards the gem, before pulling back. The third day, she finally touched the gem again and her psychic projection appeared in the Prison Realm. Taylor sighed, looking up at Ugin who tilted his head at her.

_You are distressed about something, _stated Ugin. Taylor looked off towards one of the mountains where stones floated off of them. It looked like she wanted to say something, but she couldn't.

"We can get started," Taylor said. "We'll go to the local library and find some books." Ugin nodded.

_Very well then, _said Ugin. With that, Taylor disappeared from the Prison Realm and the Spirit Dragon observed as she pocketed the Spirit-Gem. She walked downstairs, and turned to her father, who was watching TV.

"Dad?" her voice was soft. The tall man with thinning hair grunted a small response. "I'm going to the library; I'll be back later." Her dad simply nodded as if to dismiss her. Taylor looked as though she had something to say to him, she glanced down for a brief moment before she went out the door quietly. This was the routine until school started for Taylor.

Ugin had a lot of information to process. The appearance of powers coincided with the appearance of a floating golden being that later called itself 'Scion', before flying away. This being would go around the world, seemingly answering the prayers of people, almost autonomously. Ugin considered for a moment, was Scion the source of these powers? Or was he simply the first? At first Ugin thought he might be a paneswalker, but that didn't fit. The planeswalkers lost their god like power when the mending had occurred, so if Scion was a planeswalker, he should not have been that powerful. Then there was the question of the powers themselves. Were they magic? Were they something else? When Taylor had uncovered a group of parahumans that considered themselves 'magic', Ugin wondered if they were simply Planeswalkers that had decided to blend in as capes.

What triggered powers? Ugin had asked himself this, he'd seen the term 'trigger event' in reference to Parahumans many times but it had never been elaborated on. The Spirit Dragon considered sending his student off to ask another Parahuman but decided not to endanger her life. She had enough trouble as it currently stood. When she went to school, Taylor found that she had become the pariah of the entire class. The Spirit Dragon didn't know what had happened between her and 'Emma', but it seemed she'd completely turned on Taylor. They were slowly starting to escalate their pranks and insults when her mother's flute was stolen.

After that, both had agreed to not bring the Spirit-Gem with her to school anymore, even though it would've been convenient for both of them to use the resources at Winslow High. A month into the school year, Ugin decided to start teaching her magic.

He had to work from the ground up with Taylor, many up and coming mages started with an innate talent for whatever magics they were skilled at, but Taylor had none of that. Ugin thought morbidly that not having any social life allowed her to focus a lot more on both researching for him and learning magics.

_Magic is very much tied to the land, and different areas will give different mana from which to draw this magic,_ said Ugin. _But sometimes, emotions and events in places can warp the mana of the land. For instance, Brockton Bay is seeped in blue mana, but also black mana. It's a decaying city that has become crime ridden._

"So, magic can change colors to symbolically represent a change in something?" asked Taylor. Ugin nodded.

_Yes, the purest sources of each mana are as follows: Islands for blue, plains for white, mountains for red, forests for green and swamps for black,_ said Ugin. _There are a few of each scattered across Brockton Bay that you could get a small bit of mana from, but you will need to create a connection with the land first. _Taylor nodded.

"Which one are we going to start with? Red sounds really cool, like fireballs and lightning bolts-"

_We are starting with blue, _said Ugin, _it's the most plentiful in Brockton Bay and potentially the safest to start with. It also might be one of the hardest to master, but once you master it, the other colors might come to you easier. _Ugin might've taken a neutral stance in Taylor's life, but he was responsible enough to not give the child dangerous spells. He was hoping to keep magic a secret, and if Taylor decided to get revenge on her bully's, it could bode ill for both of them.

Taylor looked slightly disappointed, but didn't argue. Even before starting to get their information from the library, Taylor had been a font of Parahuman knowledge, and the Spirit Dragon felt as though the reason was that she looked up to these heroes, and wanted to be one herself.

Admirable, if foolish.

_We'll find a spot on the docks,_ said Ugin. _The mana might be harder to draw out than say the island off the coast, but it means you don't have to find a boat._ Taylor nodded to Ugin.

"What places does your mana come from?" asked Taylor. Ugin blinked.

_Innumerable places,_ said Ugin. _I've traveled all across the multiverse and attuned myself to multiple lands._

"Can anyone travel across the multiverse?" asked Taylor.

_No,_ said Ugin, _the blind eternities tear up anyone who does not have a spark. _

"You've mentioned a spark before, what is that?"

_A spark is the source of a Planeswalkers abilities to travel across worlds, those with latent sparks are exceptionally rare, and even rarer are the circumstances that allow their spark to ignite. _

"So, both you and your brother were Planeswalkers?" asked Taylor. Ugin sighed, looking towards the small corner that the mortal dragon hid. He occasionally came wandering around to other side of the pool, mostly out of boredom, and immediately, Taylor would put Ugin between herself and him. The mortal dragon knew he lost the opportunity to manipulate Taylor and didn't try to interact with her much.

_We were the first, as far as we know, _said Ugin, _perhaps once there were more before us, if so, something must have happened to all of them, for the multiverse was empty of them when I was young._ Taylor's eyes widened at that.

"How old are you, Ugin?" asked Taylor. The only response that Ugin gave was a telepathic laugh. Taylor looked a little embarrassed. "Alright, so how does a spark ignite?" Ugin paused.

_Though extreme emotion, whether it be through pain, joy, loss, sometimes the source is through violence, sometimes it can happen in the middle of a conversation_, said Ugin. _Though most planeswalkers you will meet ignited under traumatic events._ Taylor opened her mouth and shut it. Ugin had a feeling her next question would have been: 'how did your spark ignite?'

Taylor's progress was agonizingly slow. They had tried the five different types of magic to see which suited Taylor best, he tried to teach a cantrip of each color. Each showed less than stellar results, blue magic was the only one that her capabilities weren't nonexistent, so Ugin taught her a spell that allowed her to absorb information faster, giving a small bit or precognition. It was only giving fifteen seconds of this clarity, but it was enough to help Taylor along with Ugin's research into Earth Bet.

Talentless as Taylor was, she had one advantage, and that was how goal oriented she was. She was always hard at work, focusing on mastering her spells, and it was through her sheer force of will that she was able to finally cast the pondering spell as he called it.

"I did it, Ugin!" Taylor cried out; blue mana wisped around her like smoke. "I got the spell right…" He inspected as Taylor looked around the whole Prison Realm, absorbing information, taking it in. Ugin gave a reptilian smile.

_Congratulations, Taylor, _said Ugin, but he reflected on her progress. A whole year, it had taken her a whole year to learn what most apprentices learn in three months. He could chalk it up to her coming from a culture where magic was not regularly practiced, maybe her plane inhibited her ability to use magic? That, however, made no sense, he'd been to Earth before and had never felt his powers dampened.

The signs were there, though, Taylor might be a dead end. He had hoped she could be his emissary, investigating the Parahumans, Scion, and the changes the Multiverse had gone through in his absence, but if it took her a year to master a cantrip, by the time she was an adult, he couldn't hope to rely on her for the dangerous quest he had in store for her. He couldn't just expect her spark to ignite naturally either, putting her in danger on purpose wouldn't work, as the Spark was a fickle thing when choosing to ignite.

He couldn't put Taylor in danger. Afterwards, Ugin started to appear less, allowing Taylor some space after having learned the spell. He asked for less research into parahumans and the alternate Earths, and let Taylor practice alone more in the meditation realm. At some point, the visits from Taylor frequented less.

It was two months after Taylor had learned the spell that the mortal dragon spoke to Ugin again.

"Getting bored of your toy?" he asked. Ugin formed from the pools this time, something was wrong. The mortal dragon was calm, collected.

_What is it that you want?_ Asked Ugin. The mortal dragon weakly stood on his hind limbs and gave a shrug, hunching over under his own weight, his left wing twitched.

"I was just wondering what was happening with the girl, she visits less, and you've become withdrawn. I was asking if you'd gotten bored of her and her plane finally and decided to cut her off, it seems her usefulness is at an end." The mortal dragon shook his head. "A year to master _that_ spell? I wouldn't even call her a mage."

_You're fishing for information,_ said Ugin, calmly.

"I don't need to fish for information, I've been watching and listening for the better part of a year," said the mortal dragon. "I already know what's happening. You were using her, hoping that she could be your emissary across the multiverse while you waited for me to die. It didn't pan out though, did it? She has no talent. I'm surprised that you didn't just impart the information of how to cast spells directly into her head." There was a pause of silence. The mortal dragon smirked. "Really? You can't do that?"

_I delved less into the manipulation of the mind than you did. I don't make pawns like you do._ Said Ugin.

"Coming from you? That's rich, you took a vulnerable girl and promised her things she barely understood. You were hooking her on the power that you could give her and soon enough she would've been a puppet that you pulled at the strings," the mortal dragon was grinning now. Ugin frowned deeply.

_It would be wise to keep silent of what you do not understand, brother _said Ugin, _what I am doing is for the greater good of the multiverse as a whole. Everything you have done throughout your life has been nothing but selfish ambition, to gain power for no other reason than to simply have power. _The mortal dragon chuckled, shaking his head.

"Ugin, Ugin. While you may be right that your intentions are for the best of others, as you observed me, I have observed you too. I watched how you were willing to let an entire city of people be killed by Ulamog on the hunch that something terrible would happen if the Eldrazi titans perished. Your other pawns, Niv-Mizzet, Sarkhan, might've made it out better, but this one certainly isn't." The mortal dragon raised his head. "Look at her, her skin has gotten paler, her very clothes have changed, she doesn't even realize it, as she covers herself up more, ashamed of herself. She's a pariah, Ugin, and you used the vulnerability to make her dependent to you. She's far smarter than you give her credit for, she knows her progress has been subpar, but she doesn't want to disappoint you because you're all she has left. And after all of that, here you are discarding her like a broken cup." Ugin felt a chill go down his spine.

_Shut up, _said Ugin, an edge to his voice.

"You ignore the pain of others to further your own goals. Ugin, whom I named," his twin said, suddenly grinning ear to ear, he only had ten teeth left now. "You and I are _just alike."_

With that, Ugin lost his temper. He crashed into his brother, hearing bones snap and pop as he did so, grabbing at his brother's neck and slamming him onto the surface of the water. Waves rippled across it, distorting his reflection. For a brief moment, the waves rippled Ugin's horns, and in the reflection, they no longer faced outward, but inward.

"We even have the same temper," the mortal dragon said. With that, Ugin let go of his brother, extending his wings he flew off towards the nearest mountain by the meditation pools, and for the first time in a long time, Ugin took a moment to reflect on himself.

In the end, it was not soon enough.


	3. Earthbound 1-1

**Earthbound 1.1**

Things were going well in my school life, which meant the worst was going to happen sometime soon.

"I'm really proud of your progress, Taylor," said Mr. Gladly, "You've really taken a step up in your grades, just in the nick of time too." I glanced at Mr. Gladly, giving him a small smile.

"Thanks," I said, "I found myself a tutor." It wasn't a complete lie, a lot of what came up in Mr. Gladly's class just happened to be things that Ugin had wanted me to research for him. The problem was that my assignments had been stolen all of the time by Maddison Clements. I burned with anger underneath my smile, because I had told them about this a long time ago and I had been waved off, and now that it had stopped, they acted like it was _me_ who got my act together.

Fuck these guys.

Recently, it seemed as though the trio, including Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess had gotten bored of me. Finally, for someone that she only tolerated because her parents made her, Emma had been absolutely obsessed with tormenting me. There was a double-edged sword to this though, Ugin had started to fall off as well. He appeared less and less before me in the Prison Realm when I went there, and it would usually just be an awkward silence of standing around with Ugin's brother, who would mutter things under his breath and stay in his corner. I knew why too, I knew that Ugin was frustrated with my progress, and I was too.

"Really, is he from out of town?" asked Mr. Gladly, with a smile. I nodded.

"You could say that," I said, "he just moved in here and was working with my dad." That was a complete lie.

"Well, I hope you have a good Winter Beak," said Gladly, waving at me. I waved back before walking outside the classroom cautiously. I couldn't see any of the terrible trio, even then I walked cautiously. Old habits die hard.

"Hey Taylor," said Charlotte as she finished stuffing the last of her books into her locker. This was one of the benefits of my school life looking up. I had a friend again, who wasn't an interdimensional one hundred-thousand-year-old spirit dragon archmage. Actually, thinking on it, I figured that Ugin probably didn't see me as a friend, my relationship was probably more like the one with my teachers, frustrated by how lacking I was, only I couldn't blame the trio for my shortcomings. At first, when the bullying had stopped and Charlotte had approached me, I'd thought it was a trap, and kept my distance away from her, but she kept persisting, and eventually, I opened up and had a friend again.

"Hey Charlotte," I said, "thank god this semester's finally over."

"I know," said Charlotte, "Though knowing my mom, she's going to just add on a bunch more chores for me to do, or to study for the next trimester, I didn't do too well in English." I sucked in through my teeth with a hissing breath. In the back of my mind, this almost seemed alien to me. Hearing about someone's parent, their concerns, and the way they would try and do something for their child. My dad had become cold ever since mom died, he wouldn't entirely neglect me, but he didn't talk to me. My report cards would come in through the mail, he'd look at them, he'd make a comment then that'd be that.

He didn't get angry that my grades were slipping, he didn't even try to help or anything.

I thought about any sort of response I could give to Charlotte, seconds passed, before I finally decided on:

"That sucks," my voice was low when I said that.

"So, what are you doing for Winter Break?" asked Charlotte. I was thinking to myself that Ugin might have something new for me to study.

"I'm probably going to visit the family," I said, "for Christmas and all." Charlotte nodded.

"If you get bored, maybe we can hang out, come over to my place for a bit," said Charlotte. I blinked. That was the first time that someone had invited her in years.

"O-of course," I said. "I mean, I'd need your phone number." Her heart fluttered. Talking with Charlotte in school was nice, but to be able to just be with another person? As a friend?

In all honesty it's all she'd ever wanted.

"Sure," Charlotte said with a smile and the two wrote down their phone numbers. "Local number, do you not have a cell phone." I shook my head.

"No, my dad doesn't like them," I said. Charlotte accepted the explanation readily and that made things easier.

"Well hopefully I'll see you sometime during break, you have a good break Taylor," said Charlotte as she made her way to the exit. I went to my locker and opened it, discarding my books and grabbing my bag. As I did so, for a brief moment, I noticed Sophia Hess, she was watching me, a smirk on her face. I didn't stare back, or make eye contact as I closed my locker door and walked quickly outside.

She didn't do anything, and that did nothing to allay my fears, and casting the ponder spell right now was a no go, my eyes started glowing blue when I cast it. If I used it in school, I'd be outed almost instantly.

I made it home, and put my backpack on the table next to the kitchen table before going up to my room. I pulled the box that contacted the Spirit-Gem from underneath my bed, and took off my shoe, then my sock, before taking the key that was in my sock and using it to unlock the box. There it was, the Spirit Gem, still as beautiful as the day I found it during summer camp. I picked it up, before sitting down on my bed and closing my eyes.

The next second, I was in the Prison Realm again. A blue tinted mist fogged the far-off sheer mountains but I could still see Ugin atop the nearest one, facing away from it. I turned my head away. Looks like I was getting a far more direct form of the silent treatment, usually he wasn't even there, or he'd spread himself through the pools.

"Looking for something?" I heard a deep, raspy voice say. I turned, Ugin's Brother was there, drinking from the waters of the pool, crouched on all fours, skin flaking, a broken horn, I often wondered if he had any fur if he'd be mangy. He looked hurt too, one of his forearms was twisted the wrong way and he had some bruises.

"What happened?" I asked. Ugin's brother chuckled, it was an ugly sound, like an old man mixed with an alligator.

"My brother and I had a disagreement," said the old dragon. I frowned at that, Ugin wasn't the type to get physical, in fact, I'm not even sure I've heard Ugin's voice _raised_ before.

"I doubt that," I said, "and even if you're telling the truth, you probably deserved it." The mortal dragon growled at me, barring his teeth but then smiled. I turned away, moving to leave the Prison realm when Ugin's brother spoke again.

"I'll never understand how someone as weak and pathetic as you would have a spark."

That stopped me straight in my tracks. I turned around to him, and he stood on two legs, his long neck craned to look down on me. He gave a predatory smirk.

The same one that Sophia Hess had given me today.

"What?"

He chuckled at that.

"Come now, Ugin never told you? Why do you think that you're able to access this place at all? Anyone could've picked up the Spirit-Gem and it wouldn't bring them here. No, you have to have a spark to use the Spirit-Gem." I lost my voice again. I had a spark? As in a _planeswalker_ spark?

_I_ was a planeswalker?

"I don't believe you," I said. The mortal dragon laughed.

"You're a smart girl, think: why do you think Ugin would even train you to begin with?" asked the mortal dragon. My breathing hitched up a bit.

"He wanted information on Earth Bet and I was his only way of getting it," I said. Yeah, that was it, he wanted to learn about Parahumans, and about Earth's technology.

"Yes, yes, that's one reason," said Ugin's brother, "but like me, my brother is in the business of making long term investments. He was hoping to use you as his proxy, to go about the Multiverse in his stead while he waited for me to fade away." I froze at that. Ugin had wanted me to be a guardian for the multiverse? I felt a surge of sudden shame. Ugin's brother grinned, "but you see, there was just one problem. You are too pathetic, perhaps if you'd found a teacher of lesser power than Ugin you might've had a chance. But you will never live up to Ugin's expectations." The old dragon snorted. "We were gods once, the spark used to burn _strong_, we would make and unmake the very multiverse to our whims, but our legacy has faded. It has widdled down until we come to _you."_

I took a step back and he took a step forward. I'd known for a long time that Ugin's brother couldn't touch me, but now, I wasn't afraid of any physical harm he could bring to me.

"I have met countless planesewalkers throughout the eons that I have lived," said the mortal dragon, "but you Taylor Hebert, are possibly the worst one. Most of them had at least something before they even sparked. You? You're nothing. You're just one of the countless individuals who go their entire lives without having their spark ignite."

I knew it was true. I knew that Ugin thought so too. My…

My dad knew I wasn't worth it too. I looked up at the old dragon, who seemed to take pleasure in watching as my eyes watered.

"Go along now, little ant," said the old dragon. "My brother's too busy to entertain you right now." With that, I left, opening my eyes to my room. I looked over at the box and then at the Spirit-Gem before sighing. I knew that Ugin's brother was trying to get at me, and it worked because he told the truth. I didn't have what it takes to help save the multiverse, I was just some worthless kid.

The phone chose to ring at that very moment. I put the Spirit-Gem back into the box, locking it and hiding the key before I walked downstairs and picked up the phone.

"Hello, Hebert residence," I said.

"_Hey is this Taylor?" _It was Charlotte's voice. God, it was good to have someone who she could be with to forget what had just happened.

"Yeah, it's me, how're you doing Charlotte?" I asked.

"_Great! Hey, so I was wondering if you wanted to come over tomorrow, I've got some stuff to do in the morning but in the afternoon, we could probably hang out,"_ she said. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

"I'd love that, I'll just have to okay it with my dad though," I said, "but he usually doesn't care about that stuff."

"_Okay, call me when you get an answer,"_ said Charlotte. _"Good talking with you, Taylor!"_

"Bye!" I said before I hung up the phone. I glanced back upstairs one last time. Maybe things were better this way? All of the trouble with Emma started when I met Ugin, and when I tried to be a superhero through him, I just couldn't do anything.

Now things were starting to look up. I think I could be alright with being normal.

Everything was going to be alright.

* * *

Something was terribly wrong.

Winter break was over now, and all I could think of was Sophia's smirk. I had put off the thought, hoped that maybe they had actually stopped, that by some weird coincidence, by not talking to Ugin, I wouldn't get bullied.

I underestimated their patience. There was just a wrongness, that I felt. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, it was like I was being preyed upon. I nervously made it to my locker, flicking it before putting my combination in, I stopped on the last number and my locker opened.

Oh god, it was filled with pads. The smell of it alone, that rotting smell. My chest and throat burned as I felt something come up my throat. I tried to hold it in, but it was coming out, it came out, I vomited, people around me moved away. At that moment, I felt someone pull my hear, I tried to scream, choking on my own vomit before I was shoved into the locker, my head slamming against the back end of it, that part of my head felt wet. The door slammed behind me and there was darkness. I could barely turn around, crowded by all of the pads and my own vomit. I breathed in heavily, looking outside, as people passed by or simply looked.

"I'm stuck."

The words wavered out of my throat; I was begging them to help. To get someone. Go get the Janitor I wanted to shout, I coughed. The smell was so bad. Moments passed and time didn't seem to make sense, someone was getting help right? Someone would try and help me…

Then I saw her, Charlotte.

I watched as she simply stood there. Doing nothing.

I was alone here.

My seconds between my breathing got shorter as slammed on the locker door.

"Please! Let me out!" I screamed. I didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't want to be around any of this. I just wanted to be far away from here.

If there was ever a time for my spark to ignite it would be right now. I started to scream more, it was becoming more incomprehensible.

I saw Charlotte start to move, only to be blocked off by Emma. Emma said something to her and Charlotte went pale, backing up.

Please, please, _please! _Just ignite already! Nobody here wanted me, and I could go far away if I wanted to, but why couldn't I!?

I continued to scream, casting the Ponder spell, which only made the small worse and did nothing, I couldn't come up with a way to escape the locker without help. I was already in a panic.

Please spark, please.

There was no response. Instead I felt my senses overload, my ponder spell still active suddenly my brain was in thousands of places at once, the sounds I heard would get reflected back, louder, I saw so many things from so many angles. I screamed, and it just made me scream more, thrash around more.

But my spark never ignited.


	4. Earthbound 1-2

**Earthbound 1.2**

Nothing made sense anymore; it was as though I was in millions of places at once. So much information was being fed into me from air ducts, streets, even sometimes someone's hair. Occasionally, I could see… myself, and people around me; but I couldn't make anything out, everything was so loud.

I had no ability to tell how much time had passed, where I was, or what I was doing, but I kept fighting. I looked around desperately, trying to find my own sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, but it was lost in a see of millions of different senses going off at once. I was screaming incoherently, trying to find something to anchor me. Eventually everything stopped, and for a while, there was nothing.

Another timeless abyss passed me, both as long as a lifetime and short as a breath.

My eyes opened to a white ceiling and the sound of a heart monitor. I was strapped to a hospital bed; I tensed my muscles against the leather restraints and brought my eyes down. My glasses weren't on, my vision was blurry, but I could tell that I was in a spruce green gown, with lighter green polka dots.

"Taylor?" I heard a voice croak. It was weird, because it sounded like my dad. I turned my head slightly to see a blurred figure stand up from a chair and walk towards me. I squinted at him, craning my neck. The visions and images were still there, but now I could find myself in the sea more easily and… I understood what they were better, but… "Taylor?" I heard the voice repeat. It brought me out of my thoughts.

"Dad?" I called out; I could barely recognize him from the disorientation. I suddenly felt something tug and surround me from my shoulders, hard. It took a few seconds before I realized that I was being hugged. He was shouting my name over and over again, every time his voice would waver more and more. Before long, I felt something wet soak into my shirt.

I held him tighter.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I said weakly. I felt tears run down my cheeks as well now. I held my father close, it had been so long since I'd felt warmth like this. I just kept apologizing, my whole body shaking, and I didn't want this moment to ever end.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he finally asked, pained. I looked at him, at the tears coming from his eyes. It was the most emotive I'd seen him in years, and I could tell by the way his voice sounded—gravely—that he'd spent a long time screaming.

I looked him in the eyes, unable to say it aloud. He knew the reason, and he looked far more guilty that I ever had in my entire life.

"I'm so sorry," I said again. I felt so much younger again, like before mom had died. I had looked for someone to tether me, after she had died, but he hadn't been there.

"There is nothing you need to apologize for, kiddo," my dad said. "You didn't do anything wrong. I should've been there for you… I should have…" There was a long pause where he swallowed before speaking again. "We're going to get through this, Taylor," he said, nodding to me. "I'll be here for you this time. You won't have to go it alone…"

I fell back asleep again, and slept for a long time, all while feeling flashes of images from my powers. I could control bugs. A year and a half ago, I might have been excited at the prospect of getting powers. But now? It wasn't even bittersweet; it was just bitter. After being told that I could be way more than that, I felt like I was once again coming up short.

Short of Ugin's expectations.

* * *

I heard a knock on the door and my dad peaked in with a smile, and I smiled back as he came in.

"Hey kiddo," my dad greeted. It was weird, hearing that again after so long.

"Hey," I replied. I looked out the window. "How long was I out?" I asked. My dad frowned.

"You," he hesitated, "you were catatonic for a whole week." I let out a shuddering breath at the surreality of having missed that much time. He sat down next to me and cleared his throat. "Taylor, who did this to you?"

I turned my head away. I couldn't even look him in the eye. I could feel his metaphorical hand reach out to me, trying to make amends, to fix the gap between us. I felt guilty—no, more than guilty—horrible at my hesitation to take that hand.

I started to speak before I noticed something on the side table. It was a blue card with Alexandria posing on it, and in bright yellow letters it said "Get well soon". In cursive, it had been signed by each of the Barnes.

Dad couldn't help me. The school didn't want to do anything about it.

"They already know who it is," I said, not offering more. It was so humiliating; I didn't want to talk about how Emma had found me annoying and pathetic, so much so that she turned on me and worked to make me as miserable as possible. I didn't want to talk about how nobody liked me, or how my only friend just stood by and watched it happen to me.

"Taylor," my dad pleaded, practically begging, "I've spent over a week screaming and yelling at Blackwell. Every time she told me that nobody knew who the bullies were. Nobody stepped up to report them. They aren't going to do it themselves." A chill ran up my spine.

"Charlotte, she didn't tell them?" I asked, my voice sounding so plaintive. My dad looked confused, before shaking his head.

She didn't tell anyone. She was right there, too; she had seen it happen. She was my friend…

She…

I shook, holding back my tears. I couldn't cry anymore, I couldn't. I thought she was my friend, that finally someone cared for me, that I wasn't unwanted.

I'm such an idiot.

* * *

After another week, I was finally let out of the hospital. My father had gotten a large sum of money from Winslow to cover the hospital stay, plus a bit extra. On my desk were stacks of homework that I'd missed, that I needed to catch up on.

Thank god my magic essentially gives me 15 seconds of a thinker rating. I looked outside my window and at an old honeycomb wasp's nest from the summer in the corner of the outside window.

I had ignored my other senses for a while now. At the hospital, I'd learned how to push it aside, and it allowed me to fake it until I finally was deemed sane and recovered. I had a lot of fine control over the bugs, and I meant a lot, as much control as I had over my own body. It wasn't until now that I noticed how prevalent bugs actually were, even inside the walls.

My thoughts were interrupted by a faint noise that came from underneath my bed. It was like the ringing of metal: it would give off a sound, then abruptly stop. I knelt down and looked under the bed. The sound happened again and the cracks between the box underneath glowed with a pale light. I took it out from underneath the bed and found the key, before unlocking it.

The Spirit-Gem was glowing. It had never done that before, and I was a bit hesitant to even touch it. Instead, I extended my control out to a cockroach and it skittered across the floor before stretching one of it's limbs to touch the golden egg.

Suddenly my awareness was brought back to the Prison Realm, while I was simultaneously conscious in the real world.

The Prison Realm me glanced at my hands in utter confusion, as real me glanced around my bedroom.

"I," I fumbled, "what."

_There you are, _I heard Ugin's voice. Prison Realm me turned around to see Ugin, staring me down. He then blinked, examining me. I remembered he could see outside through the Spirit-Gem. He was looking at the cockroach that was now on top of the Spirit-Gem. _Taylor, how are you doing this? _I was very confused by this revelation. Spirit realm me glanced at my hand while real me backed away from the gem. Ugin tilted his head.

After months of silence, he just demands I answer his damn summons?! Prison Realm me clenched my fists; I heard the sounds of them tightening echo in Ugin's realm before they started to shake.

"That's all you have to say?!" I yelled in both realms, before my eyes widened, I then tried to jaunt everything over to the Prison Realm. It took a while, but my focus went partly to the Prison Realm, but not entirely; I was still aware of my own body and my swarm. "That's all you have to say," I repeated again. "Not, 'what happened Taylor', or 'I'm sorry I've been ignoring you'? You just fucking call me in after ignoring me for months?!"

_You are upset,_ Ugin stated. I threw up my arms.

"No fucking shit," I growled. One half of me was seething with rage, while the other half was panicking that I had never once talked to Ugin like this, and didn't know if he'd just use the Spirit-Gem to disintegrate me, or leave me a vegetable.

"Look, I don't know what you want from me now, but I can't help you; you already know that, which is why I'm wondering why you even want me to fucking talk with you. Your brother spelled it out for me." Ugin's eyes narrowed at that. "My spark didn't ignite; I was in the second worst day of my life and it didn't happen! I'm not good enough, I get that! I'm not good enough for you, and I never will be. I'm sorry I'm not… I'm not…"

Humiliation overtook my anger as tears welled up in my eyes. My face must have been beat red, because I could feel the pressure of my blood rushing into it. I covered my eyes and moved to leave. I'd thrown a damn tantrum in front of Ugin, and now I was crying. What was I doing here? I moved to leave when Ugin spoke again.

_I called you here to apologize,_ he said. I turned around to look at him. _I've thought things over, how I acted with you, and what I hoisted onto you, and realized it was unfair. I admit, Taylor Hebert, that throughout my life, traveling from plane to plane, I never saw the individual, I could only see the whole. It was my approach when teaching the people of Tarkir, and it was my approach in Zendikar, when we sealed away the Eldrazi._

He gave a reptilian sigh. _I've never really stayed behind long enough to see the ramifications of my actions on the individual. I should have had my teachings accommodate you; I should have asked about your personal life, but I considered it insignificant in the grand scheme of things. _It hurt to hear how little Ugin had actually thought of me. _I'm not the best when it comes to emotional advice, and I want to start things over._

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I sniffed, wiping away my tears in both the prison realm, and my room.

"I didn't spark, Ugin," I said, looking down. "If I didn't spark from that, I don't know what can make me spark."

_What happened?_ Ugin asked. I didn't answer. It was probably too small for him, and would just show how pathetic I was. _Taylor. Please, I want to help._ I shook my head. There was a long few seconds before Ugin spoke.

_I never told you how my spark ignited, did I?_ I turned to him, with surprise. Ugin sat down, and his long tail curled around himself.

_Years and years ago, in Dominaria,__ when civilization had just been born, my brother and I had been inseparable. We hunted together, and explored the world together, but there had been a divide between us to which I had been blind. When we were first born, we watched our sister be killed by humans, and he'd obsessed over it. I hadn't given it too much thought, and I never once talked with him about it. One day, my brother left to go take revenge on the dragonslayers, and I followed him. I caught up with him, and the dragonslayers had created their own city and started to make a profit from the killing of our siblings and cousins. _

_That was when my brother revealed his new power. He whispered into their very minds, manipulated them, and soon they all started turning on one another. The whole city started to tear itself asunder, a violent coup began, and the man who had killed our sister was slain. In the chaos, my brother had become their master, dominating their minds, taking control of the very people he hated. I was horrified, and he spoke to me. He told me that we wouldn't be the lesser amongst our siblings anymore, that we would no longer have to be afraid, and he asked for me to join him in domination. That was when he reached into my mind, and the revelation came to me._ He stopped, with his head downcast.

"What revelation?" I asked. Ugin raised his head.

_That to my brother,_ he declared, _I was just as much a tool as the dragonslayers. There was no love. It was at that moment that my spark ignited, and I felt myself be flung across the multiverse._

I knew there was history between Ugin and his brother, but damn.

I swallowed, before recounting the events which lead to my trigger; the locker, the humiliation, the revelation of loneliness when I finally understood that nobody would help me. I told him about how I got my powers, and my stay at the hospital. Ugin sighed.

_We finally understand the full implications of a trigger event, _Ugin said, shaking his head, _but_ _w__e found out in the worst way possible. _He then examined me, tilting his head from side to side. _Sparks are fickle things, Taylor. Sometimes they can ignite out of joy—I've heard of a planeswalker whose spark ignited from the joy of being praised by her god_. _It could also be that your powers are affecting your spark, as triggers and the ignition of sparks seem to be very similar._

Great. So it was a random grab bag, and the second worst day of my life wasn't enough, or my new superpowers were preventing me from becoming a planeswalker. Super. _We can leave that discussion for another time. The question remains, Taylor: what you will do with your newfound powers?_ I looked up at him, before shaking my head.

"I don't know," I said. "You know, it's funny; before I met you, I'd wanted to be a superhero. I wanted powers. Then I learned about magic, and planeswalkers, and I just wanted to escape. I wanted to escape from those three, I wanted to escape from my dad, from Brockton Bay."

Ugin raised himself from the ground. _Do you intend to be a superhero?_ he asked.

"Maybe," I temporized. I didn't tell him that I was wondering what kind of situation I'd have to put myself through in order for my spark to ignite. "But for now, I want to get used to these powers, test them. They've got way more to them than I'd originally thought." To emphasize this, I had the real me wave my hand, and Prison Realm me shrug.

_A wise decision,_ Ugin responded, _as __it's clear that Arthropod Control is not the true extent of your powers. _I nodded. Glancing around, I noticed the mortal dragon, Ugin's brother. He was staring at us with an expression of shock; maybe he hadn't expected to see me again, but then I realized he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Ugin, before he limped off, even away from the pools.

"Do you still want me to look into parahumans?" I asked. Ugin sighed.

_I would like that, but the real question is what you want, _Ugin said. _Whatever decision you make, I'll try my best to support you. _

I looked at my feet within the Prison Realm, before turning my gaze back up to Ugin.

"I want to learn more magic," I finally declared.

_Very well then._ _I think it's time that you learned other colors._

**Author's Note: I try not to put these in regularly, however, I want to give credit to my new Beta Reader StableBookcase, who really cleaned this chapter up.  
**


	5. Earthbound 1-3

**Earthbound 1.3**

It was another two days before I finally went back to school, which gave me a lot more time to figure out the other aspect to my bug control power. In hindsight, it makes sense that a power like bug control would come with multitasking, since I am literally controlling thousands of other tiny bodies. Immediately I thought of ways to test and exploit this power using the Spirit-Gem.

Ugin reared back his neck in apprehension. _You want to take the Spirit-Gem to school?_

"Think of it this way," I placated, as I glanced over towards the outdoors on Earth. "I suck at magic. So, instead of just learning in my off time, I can go to school, research for you, and prep for superhero work while simultaneously learning more magic from you; I spend a good seven hours a day at school, so that's a large chunk of time to simply waste."

_I'm concerned, Taylor, _Ugin replied. _T__his multitasking power of yours is very strong; however, I have to wonder if the there might be any unfortunate side-effects, such as fatigue from overuse. The human mind can only stand so much pressure, and if you don't rest yours, you could easily break it. _

"If that's the case, we'll stop if it's too much," I acquiesced with a shrug. "There's no point in not trying it, though." Ugin looked like he wanted to say something, but a second later, the Spirit Dragon deflated.

_We'll need to establish a connection with each type of mana, _Ugin relented. I nodded before I made the trek to school. Simultaneously, Ugin was teaching me more about magic. When I walked in the front entrance, I noticed Emma waiting. She smiled at me, and it caused me to pause in both realities.

I hated that smirk; it was the same one Ugin's Brother had worn when he thought he had something on you. It was her letting me know this wasn't over.

_Bringing the Spirit-Gem here was a mistake,_ Ugin told me. _They've gotten into your locker twice now. We cannot keep the Spirit Gem in there, so you'll have to keep it on your person. _

"Give me a warning if they try anything to the gem and I don't notice," I said in the Prison Realm. On Earth, I moved passed Emma whose eyes followed me. She was waiting to see something.

Then I saw Charlotte, and for a brief moment she saw me. I tried to speak, tried to ask why she hadn't helped, but she didn't even look me in the eye, she just hurried down the hallway. I hunched my shoulders and looked down. I heard Emma snickering and walked faster to my locker. They'd changed which locker I had, and the padlock on it. I pulled out the piece of paper with my new combination and started putting it in.

That's when I felt a shove.

My breath started to get short, panic rising, but I fell not inside the locker, but onto the ground. I gazed up and saw Sophia, who simply continued to pass by. She walked towards Madison and they seemed to be holding in laughter.

_Juvenile_, Ugin said, as though annoyed. I felt ashamed, that something like shoving could get a response like that from me, but my trigger was still fresh in my head. I felt absolutely pathetic that something juvenile, as Ugin put it, could get to me. The Spirit Dragon glanced at me. _Remember, Taylor. They are temporary. You'll be out of school one day, and they will no longer have power over you. _

"Okay," I said, both within the Prison Realm, and without. However, Ugin's words only made me feel lonelier. The only advice he could give to me was to simply endure. I knew he'd never suggest I attack the trio—hell, I didn't even _want_ to attack the trio, but literally any other advice than "just sit and take it" would be better.

I reminded myself that I'm probably the first person to interact with Ugin as extensively as I am in thousands of years, and this wasn't his forte.

_If it brings any Catharsis, I do not think Emma or Sophia will last long in the adult world,_ Ugin added._ Their constant need to have power over others seems to be the only form of comfort they have, and school is an easy landscape to manipulate. It has fewer regulations in place, and what gives them power and prestige here, won't get them far in the real world_.

I wanted that to be true, I really did, but I had my doubts. Right now, all I could think about was the fact that I was alone again. Charlotte wouldn't be caught hanging out with me, and nobody would stand up for me.

I had nothing except for these powers, so I might as well focus on that.

It was strange, simultaneously doing things in both planes. I had been clumsy at first, especially when it first happened; sometimes words I would say in the Prison Realm would slip from my real body, and vise versa, but I got better at it.

I was actually listening intently to Mr. Gladly, jotting down notes while I was talking with Ugin. At times I noticed that Ugin would turn his head, and he seemed to be watching what was happening on Earth as well.

"Can you multitask too, Ugin?" I asked. Ugin craned his serpentine neck towards me.

_Yes,_ said Ugin_, but nowhere near to the extent that you can, Taylor. Through thousands of years of practice and discipline, I can pay attention to two seperate things at once. You, however, have the potential to divide your attention—and yourself—into _millions_ of places at once. _

"Millions?" I asked.

_You control not just a few arthropods, Taylor, but _all_ of them within a radius of yourself that we still need to determine. You mentioned when you first triggered that you saw and heard through the eyes of all of the bugs around you. I feel that as you refine your powers, you'll be able to more finely control every single one of them,_ Ugin told me.

"Maybe that's something we can test when we get to the outskirts today," I replied.

Ugin's ethereal lips curved up into a smile. _The forest on the outskirts is a perfect spot. It's secluded, the gangs don't wander into the woods, and there are many different forms of arthropods for you to control, and with which to test your powers._

Ugin's brother watched us from about a block away, more intently than he had ever done. Before, he would simply pass us by, and move away to be by himself. The mortal dragon would pretend to not pay attention to us, but he was a bit too slow. He was listening, but more than that, he seemed to be staring at Ugin intently.

On occasion, the mortal dragon would try to move closer, and Ugin's head would snap in his direction. The very motion would cause the mortal dragon to bow his head in submission and move back.

My focus went from Ugin's brother to the bell ringing and Mr. Gladly's class ending. I got up out of my seat and walked out to my locker. Walking there I didn't see anyone, I breathed in though my nose, out through my mouth. I opened up the locker and-

"There you are, Taylor," said Emma, giving me that smirk again. "I was worried, you know. You spaz out so easily." With that, Sophia made a burst of movement towards me. My chest felt like it was being hit with a hammer repeatedly, my legs lost their strength, and they wobbled like rubber as I fell flat on my ass. My breath hitched as my body tensed up.

Immediately I felt bugs coming to my defense from the outside, converging upon our spot.

_Taylor!_ Ugin exclaimed, I was on the floor in the prison realm too. _You need to call them back; if you don't, you'll be outed!_ I nodded in both realities. I now noticed they were laughing at me. I was in a panic, so I told my bugs to go away, focusing on it. I felt so humiliated; now any action they made was enough to induce a panic attack. I couldn't fight back, because if I did, I could seriously hurt them.

I heard something rustle around and glanced up, watching as Madison pulled out my backpack. I moved to go and grab at it from her but then Sophia actually shoved me back down.

"Really, Taylor? Haven't turned in all of that homework from all of your other classes yet? For shame," Emma tutted, mockingly. She turned to Madison. "Go take care of Taylor's homework for her." Madison nodded and ran off. I started to chase after her and felt Sophia trip me. I quickly scrambled up off the floor and ran after Madison. She moved into the girl's bathroom and shut the door. I quickly ripped the door open following her but she walked out of a stall, a grin on her face. I looked in to see my backpack in the toilet, alongside all of the homework and papers that I had spent a whole two days working to finish.

I turned back and noticed Charlotte standing by the sink; she'd been washing her hands, but now she simply stared.

"Why didn't you stop them?" I pleaded, my voice hoarse. She simply walked out of the bathroom, and I looked down. I got my breathing under control and tugged my backpack out of the toilet. As soon as I came out of the bathroom, the trio—as well as a number of other girls—were waiting.

"Ew! She actually touched it!" one of them exclaimed. "She's so gross!" Immediately I shunted all of the audio from Earth into the Prison Realm.

_I'm sure that if you explain what happened, your teacher will let you redo the assignment, _Ugin assured me.

* * *

"I can't do that, Taylor," said Mr. Quinlan. He sat in his desk, looking at the soggy papers that had been almost disintegrated, completely ineligible. Everyone was watching, this was so humiliating. He couldn't leave it for after class, he decided to do it right now. "I gave you two weeks to do these assignments, Taylor."

"I was in the hospital most of that time," I said, "and Madison dunked it into the toilet and-"

"That's a lie," Emma said, from her desk. "She dunked her backpack into the toilet herself so that she would have an excuse." Mr. Quinlan didn't even wait for a response from me, he scrunched up his face.

"That was in a toilet," he exclaimed, "why the hell did you put it on my desk!?" I flinched. "Get it off!" I picked it up and threw it away quickly. "Look, Taylor, we gave you two weeks, you didn't have to destroy school property to come up with an excuse. You're going to have to take a failing grade on those assignments, and a detention."

I glanced over to Charlotte, begging her with my eyes to object, to defend me. She'd seen what had happened. Charlotte glanced from one side of the room to the other, before she met Emma's gaze, who glared at her. Charlotte paled, and didn't say anything.

Defeated, I sat back down and tuned out the rest of the school day.

* * *

After school I walked over to a payphone, and fishing out two quarters, I pressed them into the phone, and dialed my dad's office number.

"_Hello, this is Daniel Hebert speaking."_

"Hey Dad," I said in a low voice.

"_Taylor, what's wrong? They didn't attack you again, did they!"_ I sighed, closing my eyes tight.

"Yeah, they took my book bag and threw it into the toilet, with all of my homework in it," I said. There was silence on the other end.

"_They gave you extra time to redo those assignments, right? I can help you when I get home; and don't worry about the book bag, we'll get you a new one." _

"No," I said, "they're failing me on all of them. They spun it that I was trying to make an excuse for not doing the work. I've got a detention now too," I said.

"_They did _what!?"My dad's scream was distorted by the static of the phone's speaker, I flinched at that, at the seething anger in his voice. _"What for!?"_

"Destruction of school property," I said, "the school books were in there too when they dumped it."

I heard a hissing breath on the other end. He was trying to keep his temper under control. _"I'm guessing you were told to inform me of this?"_

"Yeah," I dejectedly replied. "Look, Dad. I'm gonna go to detention now. Afterwards, I need some fresh air, so I'll be out for a while."

"_Where at?" _he asked.

"The Library," I lied. It felt bad lying to my dad now, as he was finally responsive to what was happening around me, and wanted to help, but I didn't feel safe or comfortable telling him about Ugin, or the fact that I was a parahuman now. "I don't know if I'll come home later than you or not, but I just wanted to let you know."

"…_Alright Taylor, I'll have dinner if I come home first," _he said. _"How does Fugly Bob's sound?"_

"Sounds good, Dad," I said with a smile. "You know what I like."

"_I'll see you later, I love you," _he told me, his words holding actual meaning when he said them. It warmed my heart.

"I love you too, Dad," I re4plied, and with that I hung up and went to detention.

For the most part Mr. Quinlan ignored me and seemed to be grading assignments while I worked on the one, he'd given before class ended. I watched the clock, waiting an extra hour. Damn, it was going to be five by the time I got to the forest outside the city. I looked over the assignment, then had Ugin check over it when I'd finished, then I waited. Quinlan would glance at me, sitting there, doing nothing. He would shake his head before going back to grading. Five minutes before the hour was up, he spoke again.

"You know, Taylor, this detention would've been a great time to get your current assignment done," he said, glancing towards me. "But you decided to spend your time just sitting here doing nothing. I hope you realize this is part of the problem."

"I know," I said, "I could've made up all of those assignments that you won't let me redo by now."

"I doubt you could," Quinlan raised an eyebrow. "You didn't even bother to finish the one you already had." I didn't make any expression, but I was feeling _smug. _

The exact moment the hour passed, I walked up to Mr. Quinlan's desk, and put the finished math assignment in front of him. Wordlessly, and without looking at him, I left.

* * *

As I caught a bus towards the outskirts of town Ugin spoke to me.

_School is starting to become more of a detriment than an advantage,_ he noted. _They refuse to do anything about the bullying, and it's affecting your grades. Is this normal for schools?_

"Yes and no?" I said in the Prison Realm, shrugging. "It is odd that nobody has tried to stop them. It's as though the teachers are afraid of something."

_May I make a suggestion,_ Ugin said as he rose to his own two feet. _What you just did there proves that you are far beyond your grade level, and that participating there is an absolute _waste_ of your time. You could drop out of school and pursue a General Education Degree online. _I noted with some annoyance that Ugin refused to abbreviate most things.

I thought about it for a moment. Quitting school would mean that I could focus more on important stuff, like helping Ugin and getting a far better understanding of my powers.

"I'll think about it," I said, "we'd need to get my dad on board, and convince him it's for the best."

_Don't think about it for too long, _Ugin warned me, _I fear your situation _in_ school could escalate to some unwanted consequences _out_ of school. You almost outed yourself on your first day back. _I flinched.

"I'll do better next time," I promised. I felt the bus hiss as it lurched to a stop. The doors opened and, after paying, I left the bus. I walked further into the outskirts, leaving the city behind. The concrete buildings turned into neighborhoods, and eventually, I found the edge of the forest.

I plunged inwards, my shoes crunching on the fallen leaves of seasons past. The last time I'd been in the woods, I'd met Ugin.

I'd walked for an hour before I found that the number of bugs had actually multiplied. I could feel spiders with webs in the trees, flies on dead animals, and caterpillars eating the leaves. I knew this wouldn't have been possible without Brockton Bay's isolated environment, which trapped heat in the region.

I looked at a tree next to me, infested with termites, and saw it was dying. Bees moved from flower to flower, collecting pollen as they took the nectar.

The bugs had a purpose. They each did something for this forest, everything working towards a unified cause.

I didn't sit down the same way I did at the docks, when I'd made a connection to blue mana. I cast the spell, and felt surprise when suddenly, I saw through the bugs better. Even more than that, I saw through them with the same lens as the ponder spell. I could calculate how leaves would fall, how many plants the honeybees would pollinate before returning to the hive.

Everything I wasn't witnessing, the bugs were.

"Ugin…" I breathed.

_Your powers, _Ugin watched intently, looking down at the reflecting pools. _They are interacting with your magic; when you use your magic, you can link it with your swarm as well. _I smiled and laughed. It was beautiful, this entire forest, everything was part of a system.

The bugs moved around me in a helix, many different species started to swirl around me, and I looked up, watching the sunlight pass through the branches of oaks and pinewoods. I let the swarm disperse and stood on top of a rock, looking down a slope into the greater forest, seeing the slope rise again into one of the mountains that cut off Brockton Bay. I could only feel a small part of this whole forest, and even that was incredible. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. Using my bugs, I concentrated on the land, bringing up the feeling that I felt, just being in the vicinity of them. My understanding of the system.

Now that I thought about it, everything was a system. The system of cells that make up our organs, the organ systems made by those, the role we play in our environment, the role the insects play. They play such a big role, but they are part of a greater whole. The very forest itself was like a single living organism.

This was the essence of life.

I glowed green, the energy swirled around me and I opened my eyes.

"I did it!" I exclaimed. I was surprised, this was so much easier than last time. Did it mean I had an affinity for green? But then casting that ponder spell came easier to me too when I did it through my bugs. I blinked, noticing that it was pitch black.

"How long was I out, Ugin?" I asked.

_Five hours,_ he noted. My eyes widened.

"_Shit!"_

* * *

Time to face the music.

I opened the door to my house and walked in. My Dad was waiting in the kitchen, a bag of Fugly Bob's on the table, looking at the TV in the living room.

"I'm so sorry dad, I lost track of time and I got home as soon as I could," I started to speak, faster and faster. My dad exhaled and glanced back at me.

"Taylor, you scared me so much," he walked over and hugged me. "I didn't know if you were hurt or not, something's going on right now in the city and…" I glanced over at the television.

There was a photo of a man, wearing a cloak that covered his whole body, with the exception of his left arm; it was made of metal, skeletal in appearance, with three sharp fingers. They were all only attached by the sinister magenta glow that radiated from the prosthetic.

In scrolling letters, I saw the words:

**TIDEHOLLOW SIGHTED IN BROCKTON BAY: INFINITE CONSORTIUM ON THE RISE AGAIN!**

_**AN: Beta'd by StableBookcase**_


	6. Earthbound 1-4

**Earthbound 1.4**

"You recognized Tidehollow." It was the next morning. I had gone to bed not to soon after having a talk with my dad. It was eerily quiet as I opened the screen door, I heard the echoes of silence, it was pitch black out, the streets were illuminated by warm lampposts.

_Yes, _Ugin nodded,_ I know of him. My brother knows him far better, after all, Tidehollow was one of his minions._

"So, he's a Planeswalker," I groaned, "shit. That makes too much sense." I hadn't paid much attention to the Tidehollow stuff when it first started happening. Both my father and I were mourning the loss of my mother. From what I understood at the time, Tidehollow was a tinker. He would steal tinker technology from other capes and reverse engineer it or just horde the technology. His criminal organization, the Infinite Consortium, was a sort of arms dealer, but for tinker supplies and tinker weapons. At first nobody took the organization seriously, it seemed like just a smaller rival to Toybox.

That was until the Infinite Consortium _ate_ Toybox.

Tidehollow had attacked Toybox, adding all of its technology to his collection and usurping it's place in the Tinker-tech black market. Toybox became a part of the Infinite Consortium, and they weren't interested in selling to the Protectorate. After that the Protectorate and the PRT mustered a manhunt for Tidehollow, but he just disappeared around a year ago.

He had a few other "capes" with him that had varying abilities, and sometimes they weren't the same one, no one knew where _any_ of his capes went. Whenever the Protectorate tried to come down on the Infinite Consortium, they disappeared, nowhere to be found. They could move quick too, they could be in Brockton Bay one day and be in Canada the very next.

The theory on PHO had been that the Infinite Consortium had a really powerful mover working for them, or that they ducked out into a pocket dimension using the Toybox tech, but as it turns out: it was way worse.

"What about the other capes with him, they're all planeswalkers too?" I asked. Ugin gave a nod. "Holy fuck." This guy had a whole gang of planeswalkers at his beck and call.

_His real name is Tezzeret. He's an artificer from a plane called Esper, _said Ugin. The Spirit Dragon craned his neck over to the mortal dragon, who's lips quivered with rage at the name. _I believe you would know far more about him. _

The mortal dragon looked between the two of us before snorting and limping away from the pools of becoming.

_I had a feeling he wouldn't be cooperative, _Ugin sighed. I finished putting on my shoes and went out the door, taking my daily jog. It was good getting my blood pumped, allowed me to think more freely. We were also measuring the radius on my bug control powers.

While I was jogging, I had a fly in front of me that I kept track of, I would whisper the ponder spell, and hide the glow under my hoodie. Each of the sidewalk squares were a meter in length and I was consciously aware of the fly as it zoomed passed me. I stopped for a brief moment, counting each square until the fly disappeared from my radius, I could no longer feel it.

"176 squares, roughly 528 feet, two blocks," I read off the calculations in my head.

_Impressive, _said Ugin, _I wonder if over time your range will increase. We can perhaps find a way to use magic to enhance it. _

"I was thinking of another way to utilize this power," I said.

_Oh?_ Ugin tilted his head.

"Spider silk, I can make a costume out of it," I said.

_Such armor would be incredibly durable, _Ugin said. _Perhaps later I could teach you an enchantment spell to make it even more durable. _I nodded at that as I finally finished my jog.

_Have you given what we talked about yesterday more thought?_ Ugin asked. I sighed, shaking my head.

"I don't know if I should do that," I said, shaking my head. "I mean, wouldn't it be too suspicious?"

_Taylor, you almost outed yourself yesterday_, Ugin said. _Those girls don't intend to stop, and what happens when they escalate right back up to the levels of the incident?_ I flinched. _We cannot risk that. Please, talk with your father tonight. _

"Alright," I nodded. "I want to do something, before that though." Ugin tilted his head quizzically.

* * *

School started and I wasn't immediately greeted by the trio, that was a good start. I immediately went for my destination. Charlotte saw me from her locker and moved to get away, I moved in front of her. Every time she tried to move off to one of the sides, I moved to cut her off. Eventually she relented. I took a deep breath in, swallowing. I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to punch her for how she betrayed me. Instead, I exhaled and spoke.

"Why?" I finally asked.

"Please, Taylor, just let me go," Charlotte said, begging me.

"No, I want to know why," I growled, "I want to know why you let that happen to me. Why you didn't get help? Were you with them all along? Were you just pretending to be my friend?!"

"I wasn't pretending!" She exclaimed. "Please, Taylor, I can't be seen around you. Please, just let me get to class."

"Why, because I'm that pathetic? Am I too gross? Are you afraid the others are going to judge you because of me?" I asked. "Tell me what I did wrong!"

"You didn't do anything wrong," Charlotte said, she was trying to hide her face. "I can't…Emma, she'll tell them…" Tell them what?

I wanted to ask her that, but then I noticed through my swarm that the trio was approaching. I closed my eyes, whatever it was that Emma had over Charlotte, it was enough to make her deathly afraid.

"Go," I finally said. With that, Charlotte ran to class and I opened my eyes. I steeled myself, keeping my swarm at bay. My hands balled into fists. Emma glanced back at Charlotte and she froze in place. I would've thought that Emma was some parahuman, or a sinister mage by the way she made these things happen. She was not smiling now, in fact, she looked pissed. It was the kind of agitation you saw from adults when dealing with troublesome children.

"Why were you talking with Charlotte?" Emma's voice was cold. I opened my mouth to respond and she shook her head. "No, I'm asking the wrong person." She then ignored me and stared at Charlotte; it was a tactic I knew was meant to put me down. "Why are you speaking with Taylor, Charlotte?"

Charlotte shook her head, pale as a sheet. "Wasn't speaking with her, honest. Please don't…"

"Sure looked like it," said Emma, sarcastically. "Tell me why I shouldn't-"

"I got in her way and cornered her," I said, whatever it was that they threatened Charlotte with, it made her deathly afraid. I couldn't let Emma do that to her. "She didn't speak to me voluntarily. I forced her to."

"I'll talk with you in a bit, Taylor," Emma sneered, "the big girls are talking right now." She wasn't taking it. I needed to get her attention.

"No, you listen right here you bitch," I growled, my own voice surprised me, and Emma too. "Whatever your issue is with me, it's with me. You leave her out of this." My bugs notified me that something was coming at me, but before I could make a proper response, Sophia had already charged me, grabbing me and shoving me against a locker five feet away. I felt the wind knocked out of me as she held me in place, her arm pressed against my neck.

"God you're such a whiny little slug," Sophia said. My breathing couldn't even increase in pace out of panic, she was pressing her forearm against my throat so hard. I felt the blood start to flow up my head. I resisted the urge to bring my powers into play. This was a schoolyard fight, not a life and death situation. I sure felt like absolute shit though. I struggled in her steel like grip to try and get out. "Where's that bravado from before? Thought you were willing to take all of the punishment for her." I retaliated by giving a steely gaze. In my mind, I put her in comparison with Ugin's Brother, though old and wretched, he was still a giant elder dragon.

Comparatively, Sophia Hess wasn't that scary.

"N—nowhere," I wheezed out. "I'm—still here."

Sophia grinned. "You're right, Hebert, you are still here, and you always will be." A locker opened up and my eyes widened. A crowd had been drawn to the commotion and I watched as they all just stared. It was going to happen again; I was going to be stuck in some locker while everyone just watched. I struggled more now a scream being throttled out as Sophia grabbed me by my hair and-

"Stop it," I heard a voice from behind us. There was a whole crowd of people now, surrounding us, but there was only one person who stood up.

Charlotte.

"Stop it," Charlotte repeated, she was crying. Everyone was shocked, including myself. "Leave her alone. Or I'll tell them."

"Tell them what, Charlotte?" asked Emma, with a warning tone in her voice. "I was willing to let this slide, but I've changed my mind." Charlotte furrowed her eyebrows.

"So. Fucking. What," growled Charlotte and Emma took an involuntary step back. "If she's willing to risk it all, for me, and I'm not, then I'm no better than you."

Emma glared at Charlotte. "What was that?"

"I'm saying that as awful as you say Taylor is, you're so much worse, and I won't stoop to your level," said Charlotte. "If she's so pathetic why do you constantly hunt her down?"

"Stay the fuck out of this, Charlotte," said Emma, with a growl.

"No, I won't," Charlotte yelled, "because she's my friend, and you won't stop hurting her." I forgot all about the choke hold that Sophia was holding me in, I forgot about the locker, I even forgot I had a swarm or magic with those words. I felt tears coming down my eyes involuntarily.

"Believe me, Charlotte, she was my friend too," said Emma, "I can say with confidence that it's not worth it. She's a sad lump of shit."

"That's what I didn't get," Charlotte said, "I was Taylor's friend for months, and she's a good person, incredible, honestly, in some aspects. I didn't get why you betrayed her, but now I think I do." Emma tensed up, she'd been losing control of the situation since I lashed out, but her visual cues were subtle then, this wasn't. "You attack her because you think it makes you better than her, you think by putting her down that it makes you stronger. You're not, you're not even close to being as strong as she is. I would never have come back after that shit from two weeks ago, _you wouldn't have_, but she's still here. I would've lashed out a long time ago, but she didn't. Do you know why? Because she's strong enough to not stoop to your level."

Emma slapped Charlotte, a look of seething rage on her face.

"Hey!" I heard a shout; I could barely recognize who the voice was. Mr. Gladly? I felt Sophia remove her forearm from my neck, I started coughing, crumpling to the ground. I felt dizzy as I heard someone speaking. I looked up and I saw Charlotte, extending her hand out to me. She had a red mar on her face and she sniffed quietly. I took her hand and stumbled awkwardly into standing. We looked at each other for a long minute, before I spoke again.

"I'm so sorry," I said. Charlotte shook her head.

"Don't be," she said, she was about to speak again before Mr. Gladly spoke again.

"Come on you two, principal's office," he said. Charlotte helped steady myself as we made our way to the principal's, Emma and Sophia were in front of us, things started to blur together and I sent my focus right back into the Prison Realm as I stumbled with Charlotte.

_Are you satisfied with the results?_ Ugin asked.

"My throat feels like it's been smashed by a boulder," I told Ugin in a flat voice.

_That's not what I meant,_ said Ugin. _This was clearly about Charlotte, and not those three. You got your answer, are you satisfied with it?_

"I guess I'm relieved," I shook my head. "I was expecting a very different answer, but, it's nice to know that there wasn't something wrong about me, and that I don't deserve this. That something is finally going to be done about this."

_No, _said Ugin, _I don't think this is over, not by a long shot._ That got me spooked. If Ugin thought that there were more hoops to jump, then he was probably right. When I finally got my bearings again, I was sitting down in the Principal's Office. I blinked. Mrs. Blackwell sat at her desk in front of me.

"Are you even paying attention, Mrs. Hebert," she asked, her voice tense.

"She was just throttled for over a minute, give her a moment," Charlotte tensed. Mrs. Blackwell raised an eyebrow.

"I was asking Miss Hebert what she did to get Miss Hess to attack her like that," said Mrs. Blackwell.

"…I told them to leave Charlotte alone," I said, truthfully, my head still felt like it was spinning. "They were threatening her, so I told them to leave her alone."

"And what were they threatening her with?" Mrs. Blackwell asked.

"…" I didn't answer, because, well, I didn't know. Charlotte finally spoke up.

"Emma had threatened to tell the Empire 88 kids that," Charlotte stopped, before continuing, "to tell them that I'm Jewish."

Oh. _Oh_.

My mouth dropped at that. I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it was _that bad._ Would Emma even do that?

"Well, are you?" Mrs. Blackwell asked.

"Y-yeah," Charlotte said. There was an awkward silence before the principal looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

"Why did she threaten you with that?" asked Mrs. Blackwell. "What did you do?"

"She didn't want me to tell anyone that they were behind the locker incident," Charlotte said. Miss Blackwell frowned again. "And she didn't want me to be Taylor's friend anymore."

"Are you sure about that, Charlotte?" asked the principal, a tilt in her head. That made my heart stutter the way she said that.

"I watched it happen, Blackwell," Charlotte said, she was getting frustrated now. "I watched Sophia grab Taylor and shove her into the locker!"

With slow dread it was becoming clear what Ugin had meant. She had already taken a side, and it wasn't ours. She had known from the start who had shoved me into the locker. I gripped the armrests of my chair tighter.

"Is this true, Miss Hebert?" Blackwell asked. I immediately knew what was going on. _Gaslighting_. She was trying to gaslight us into saying we didn't know.

"I didn't see who did it," I said, "but I know it was them."

"Taylor, then tell me why nobody else has come forward," Blackwell said, "are you telling me that Emma has threatened every person in this school?" The answer to that question, terrifyingly enough, was probably _yes._ "From what I understand, it was crowded there, and you saw it happen, Charlotte, how could you make out Sophia in that whole crowd?" Charlotte hesitated. Shit, it was working.

"I-I-," Charlotte started.

"If that's the story you're going to stick with, fine, I'm going to be talking with Sophia and Emma next," Blackwell said. "We've already contacted your parents. They're on their way right now, after I'm done talking with them, all four of you are going to have a three-day suspension."

Charlotte's face dropped. "What? No!"

_Oh thank the Ur-Dragon,_ said Ugin, exasperated. In the Prison Realm, I stared at him, but I was of a similar thought, it'd give me more time to get in tuned with the different manas and learn more magic.

"After that, when everyone's heads are all cooled down, we can talk again," Blackwell said. I resisted the urge to tilt my head. Was Blackwell buying time with this suspension to work up a defense? As the door opened, I saw Sophia, glaring hard at me, and Emma at Charlotte, we both sat down and waited for our parents to pick us up.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," I finally told Charlotte.

"I told you not to be sorry," Charlotte said, shaking her head. "I'm the one that's sorry, I was so afraid and scared. It was bad what I let them get away with. I just sat there and watched. I'm a coward."

"No," I told her, shaking my head, "what Emma threatened you with—that's serious."

"Yeah, but they don't play hardball either, and I thought to myself: 'if she's willing to risk this for me, why can't I do the same for her?' I don't regret doing this for you," Charlotte said.

"To be honest, this has never happened before, where _they_ got suspensions as well," I said.

"Mr. Gladly caught Sophia strangling you," Charlotte said, "how could he not."

"They're usually more careful about how and where they do it," I said. "They lost their cool this time." There was a long pause before Charlotte spoke again.

"Do you think Emma will make good on her threat," Charlotte shivered. I thought for a moment, telling a comforting lie would probably do worse for her in the long run.

"If you'd have asked me a week ago, I'd have said no," I glanced over at Blackwell's office, through a window that had diamond shaped wires, I could see Blackwell, looking over at her phone, nodding. She probably had it on speaker. Emma was glaring at us as she texted on her new smartphone. It was too bad that I couldn't really make out sounds too well yet using my powers, otherwise I would've been able to listen in on the conversation. "But I've never seen her react like that. She's never actually physically done something. I don't know how you did it, but I think you got under her skin."

"So, what you're saying is—"

"Keep safe," I told her.

We waited for what felt like an eternity before Charlotte's mother came first. She gave a glance at me, and saw my bruised-up neck.

"Are you going to be alright, Taylor?" asked Charlotte's mother. I nodded.

"Yeah, Mrs. Miller," I said. "Thanks to Charlotte." Mrs. Miller turned to Charlotte who looked a bit guilty.

"We'll talk in the car," Mrs. Miller said, she didn't seem angry at Charlotte actually, which relieved me. I'd gotten her in enough trouble as is. "You have a good day, Taylor, do you mind if we talk with your dad tonight?" I nodded.

"Sure, Charlotte has my phone number," I said. Mrs. Miller nodded and both her and Charlotte left.

My dad didn't come in until another ten minutes later. He came in with a sigh until he saw my neck. Suddenly his face turned beat red, and he started to storm towards the principal's office.

"Dad, no!" I grabbed his arm but he kept moving closer there. "Dad, listen to me, please. Let's just…go home, I'll talk in the car." He stopped, his fists balled up, taking a breath and turning around he hugged me.

"Taylor, I'm so scared for you right now," he said with a lump in his throat. "We can't keep doing this…" I hugged him back. I lead him to the car where we got in and he simply sat there in the driver's seat. He didn't even turn the engine on yet. I took a deep breath.

"It was Emma," I said. He looked shocked. "She's been behind it all along. I came back from that Summer Camp and she'd just changed, she said she didn't want to be my friend anymore, and that she only had tolerated me up until this point. Then she got her other friends, and they just started tormenting me on and on…" I started to spill, trying not to cry.

"Aright," my dad said. "Alright, Taylor, what do you want to do?"

"I don't want to go to Winslow anymore," I said, "I…I've been thinking about it. Maybe I could be home schooled for a while. When I turn sixteen, I can take online classes, get my GED."

My dad sighed. "I don't know, Taylor. I…" He inhaled and exhaled, before putting the key into the ignition and turning it. The old car vibrated and hummed before we started to drive home. He stopped at the exit of the school parking lot. "…I don't know if that's best for you. Maybe we can find another school or…"

"They keep sabotaging my grades," I said. "No one would ever accept a transfer from me. Trust me, Dad, please. I can't go back there…" Dad swallowed before finally taking the left turn.

"You promise to keep up on your studies," Dad asked. I nodded. "I'll give it some thought. I want to talk with the Millers…and the Barnes." His voice was cold when he mentioned the Barnes. The rest of the ride home was quiet, until we pulled into our driveway and I got out of the car.

"I've got to go back to the docks," my dad said, "stay inside for now, and keep safe." I nodded. "I love you."

"I love you too, Dad," I said with a smile as he pulled back out and drove away. I sighed.

"Are you satisfied now?" I asked Ugin. The Spirt Dragon sighed.

_Perhaps we should take a break,_ Ugin said, _we'll save learning new magic for tomorrow. _

"I'm capable of doing it now, I've got time," I protested. Ugin shook his head.

_You are not in the right mind set, a good night's sleep will help with that, _said Ugin. _Until then we can discuss ideas for you going out as a cape._

"I haven't even thought of a name yet," I said. "Do you have any good ones?" Ugin considered for a moment.

_'Bala'?_ Ugin asked. _It's the name Costa Ricans use for the bullet ant. _

"I don't think a whole lot of people would get that one," I said, sitting on the computer. "Also, doesn't that mean 'bullet'? People might get the wrong idea."

_True, _Ugin said. _Swarm?_

"Maybe a bit too on the nose?" I thought to myself. "Is that one even taken?" A quick google search later showed that it was taken. "Plus, I've sort of taken to calling my bugs that."

_Are you sure that you want me to come up with a name?_ asked Ugin.

"I'm sure whatever you come up with, it's got to be better than Clockblocker," I said in a flat tone.

_That's not what I meant,_ said Ugin, for dragons_, those who name you are those who take charge of your destiny. It is why a dragon almost always will never suffer another to name them, for they take charge of their own destiny. _

I glanced over towards him. "You said almost always, there were exceptions?" Ugin nodded.

_I named my brother,_ Ugin glanced towards the mortal dragon, _and my brother named me. As you can see, we are eternally doomed to cross paths until the end. _

"Damn," I whispered, "though, I'm not a dragon, so I don't think that it applies there."

_Perhaps not,_ said Ugin. _Perhaps it does, I still feel this is something that I should not give to you. _

The rest of the day went by easy, I made pasta for dinner in time for Dad's return and both my dad and I sat down.

"I had a talk with Mrs. Miller," my dad told me while we ate. "She said not to worry about Charlotte, she's not in trouble." I smiled at that.

"That's good," I started poking at the pasta. "What's the conclusion you've come to?"

"We both agree that it's probably best you shouldn't go back to Winslow," my dad said. I nodded. "We're going to try and get you into Arcadia High." I sighed, it was a nice dream, I would've loved it, leaving the trio behind, getting into a better school.

"I'd never get in, Dad, I don't have the grades for it," I said. He bent his head down over his plate before shaking it.

"What's wrong?" I asked. He looked up and inhaled.

"This is my fault," he said. "All of it."

"Dad," I tried to reason with him and he shook his head.

"Back when your mother was alive, this must've been seventh grade, we had a talk. The school had talked to us about potentially having you skip a grade, and we had a bit of a discussion about it." He paused. "I convinced her that you'd be far happier being in high school with your best friend, and that you wouldn't have anybody if you just graduated into high school above your grade."

I snorted before shaking my head.

"You couldn't have known," I replied.

"Then your grades started to drop when you went to high school," he said, "and I didn't do anything about it. I didn't investigate it, I just let it happen. I saw you were changing, that you smiled less, I saw that you were tired all of the time. I didn't do anything." His hand trembled.

"Dad," I called.

"You needed someone, and I just left you to fend for yourself," he said.

"Dad," I repeated.

"I was so selfish, I lost sight of everything, I-"

"Dad!"

He looked up at me. I swallowed.

"You're here for me now," I said, "and that's all I could ask for." He nodded and turned on the TV. Mostly news, the Protectorate was on alert, just in case Tidehollow resurfaced again. Dad changed the channel and we started to watch a movie.

* * *

The next day, after dad left for work I was back to learning new spells from Ugin.

_One of the many aspects of green magic is growth,_ he told me, _and I think that teaching you growth spell will help you and your swarm. We've already seen that you can use the ponder spell through your swarm, and have each of their minds help you process the information, but with the growth spell, you'll be able to increase the size of arthropods in your swarm. _

I was experimenting on flies that I let climb through my window. I remembered the feeling of nature, the memory of the forest, green energy glowed around my hands as I pointed at the fly. It didn't grow. I tried again, this time, I tried to use the magic through the swarm. The fly doubled in size, which was honestly not that impressive.

"Is that the maximum limit of this spell?" I asked. Ugin shook his head, thinking for a moment.

_Perhaps the spell is being distributed through the swarm, _Ugin said, _see if you can condense the magic into this one fly. _I felt the magic coursing through the swarm, and pulled it together, concentrating on the fly in front of me. It's head suddenly grew to the side of a tennis ball, it reminded me of the first Fly movie, when the cloth is removed from Andre Delambre to reveal he has the head of a house fly. The poor thing, unable to support it's weight, crashed down to the ground head first. Ugin and I stared at what I'd wrought for a few seconds, he was about to speak again when the fly's little wings twitched. He was silent for another second before speaking.

_Practice makes perfect, Taylor, _said Ugin. _And we have a long time before your father returns from work. _For the next few hours, I continued to practice on various bugs, trying to get the spell right. The sun had set when the phone rang. I walked downstairs and saw that it was the Miller's number. I picked it up.

"Hello, Hebert residence," I answered.

_"Taylor!" _It was Mrs. Miller, she practically yelled into the phone. _"Is Charlotte there, is she over at your place?"_

"No, we didn't make plans or anything like that, I haven't seen her since yesterday" I said, "why? What's going on?"

_"She's been missing for hours!"_


	7. Earthbound 1-5

**Earthbound 1.5**

My eyes widened and I choked on words for a few seconds.

"What do you mean she's missing?" I asked.

"_I told her to go get some asparagus for dinner tonight at the grocery store, it's only a ten-minute walk away, but she hasn't come back and she's not answering her phone."_

Emma wouldn't have. How did she do it? She was suspended too. I remembered briefly Emma texting when I had peeked into Blackwell's office.

"M-mrs. Miller," I stammered, "D-did Charlotte tell you what Emma threatened her with?" There was a pause before Mrs. Miller spoke again.

"_No, she didn't. She said I'd overreact,"_ Mrs. Miller said. Charlotte why did you do that?! I swallowed.

"Okay, I need to make a call really quick, I'll be right back," I said, hanging up. I immediately hammered the Barnes house phone with my fingers. The phone rang, and each time I heard ringing the dread of the situation dawned on me more and more. Thirty seconds later there was a click.

"_Hello this is Alan Barnes speaking,"_ Emma's father declared.

"This is Taylor," my voice was cold, I was doing my best to impersonate Ugin's more serious tone. "I need to speak with Emma."

"_Are you calling to apologize, Taylor?"_ Alan asked condescendingly. I bit back a venomous response and gave a cold one back.

"Sure," I hissed. With that I heard him walking up the stairs, I noticed that it took him a whole lot longer than usual to get up to Emma's room. I heard two voices with the creaking of a door. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but one was Emma, and the other was Sophia's. Alan put his hand over the phone and I heard his muffled words come out like a murmur. A raven landed on the windowsill next to me. I heard the phone trade hands and waited another thirty seconds.

What a bitch.

"_Hey Taylor, it's been a while since you've called me!"_ Emma's tone was so chipper and fake. She'd done this to me before when she pretended to be my friend again for a day.

"What did you do," I growled through clenched teeth.

"_Well today I took a walk with Sophia over to the mall and-"_

"Did you tell them!?" I yelled. I'd finally lost my temper. She was wasting my time. "Did you tell the Empire kids about Charlotte!?"

"_What are you talking about, Tay?"_ She was still keeping her tone up. _"I've been suspended like you; how could I possibly tell anyone anything? I don't even know what you're talking about._"

"Charlotte is missing," my lips were twitching upward in anger, I probably sounded more like a rabid dog than an actual person. "Cut the shit and tell me the truth, did you fucking tell the Empire kids about Charlotte?!" I had never shouted that loud before in my life, for a brief moment my throat felt a bit of rasp.

"_I dunno what that's all about Tay-Tay, I'm sure she'll turn up in a few hours. Who knows, she might've gained a bit of perspective,"_ cheery as ever, but I got the message behind the lines.

"YOU BITCH!" I slammed the phone down and ran outside.

_Taylor, you need to call the police,_ Ugin said. _You're not ready to go out on your own yet._

"I can see through my bugs, Ugin, I can find her quicker than they can."

_You don't have a costume, you have to hide your face,_ Ugin said.

"I don't have time," I pulled my hoodie over my head and started running. I was calling my ponder spell to me and I displaced it throughout the swarm, everywhere within two blocks of me I felt time slow down as my brain started to process information, I passed by abandoned houses riddled with cockroaches, nothing. I ran as fast as I could, trying to get to where Charlotte's house was.

Oh god, she could be anywhere in Brockton Bay. She might even be dead already.

I reached the area between the house and the grocery store, and started running desperately down it, an ominous glow coming out of my hands and eyes as I would send my ponder spell throughout the swarm. There were sparse people around watching me, a blond teenager who glanced at me with a tilted head, a homeless man in the alleyway, but I didn't care. I was aware of absolutely everything within two blocks of me, and felt a few gnats taking particles of blood out of a brick on the corner of a store. Other insects were crawling over asparagus and eating at it from a Dolly's Market bag.

My spell calculated for me where the bag had fallen from, she had broken into a run when they'd cut the corner in the opposite direction of her house. The blood on the brick was where a struggle probably happened. I felt some other insects eating at small bits of skin. Yes, but the blood probably wasn't hers, she'd scratched one of them while trying to struggle away. Now came the part that I actually needed the spell for, I turned back the clock in the small minds of the bugs around me and then I saw things shift around me, distorted shapes as I saw the ghostly outline of three individuals, one of them held a beer bottle and was significantly taller than the others. One was significantly taller than the rest, and was helping a shorter target restrain the shortest target: Charlotte.

The two spectral figures of blue mist grabbed the third into the back alleyways. I immediately darted between the two buildings and started to follow the bug trail. The ponder spell faded and I waited for a chance to recast it.

I ran through the maze of alleyways, looking for something. I cast the ponder spell again and I was once more trailing specters. It had been hours since Charlotte went missing, I crumpled down, at the rate I was following this trail, she'd be dead, if she wasn't already. I gripped onto a chain link fence as I passed by it, panting. I was close to breaking down and crying. That's when for the first time I noticed I'd been followed. Rain started to pour down in droplets, it was the blond girl from outside the alleyway.

She glanced at me, her phone in hand. She seemed to be texting something. I looked at her confused when she finally spoke.

"113th Street, behind the abandoned gas station," she said. What? What was she talking about?

"What?" I asked, for clarification, still trying to move.

"They took her to 113th Street, behind the gas station. They're waiting for a lieutenant to be present, it's an initiation." Ugin watched intently now from the Prison Realm.

"How do you know-how did you know I was—"

"She doesn't have much time," she swallowed. "Move." With that I started running again. She held up her phone again and started to make a call.

I would worry about that later; I had a lead now. As I was making my way to the abandoned gas station, the storm came in from the Atlantic, the downpour obscured my vision and hampered my swarm, but from a group of spiders hiding under a window sill, I could see the gas station. I stopped across the street, breathing in, I gave a chilled breath.

I needed a plan, something. I looked over towards spiders that had abandoned their webs to find shelter, calling them to me. I didn't freak out when they crawled up my pant leg and into my hoodie's pockets. I walked stealthily towards the gas station and finally they were in my range. I had any hiding insects come out. It was disorienting, quite a few were constantly hit by droplets of water, which would send a shockwave through them and blur their vision, but I could see from the dying lamppost's light what I was looking for and I nearly vomited. They had chords of wire coiled around her neck, and tied to the lone lamppost. There was duct tape that held her arms and legs together, she just laid there on the ground, the side of her face being soaked in the half an inch of water that the rains brought. She was trying her hardest not to choke out a sob.

There were three people there now, one of them was the tall figure that my bugs had picked up on the ponder spell, he had to have been at least thirty years old. He was opening and closing a large flip knife. The other two were significantly younger, teenagers. One of them I recognized in passing, I think I might've had math with him, but I never bothered to learn his name. The kid Emma must've told. I was confused though, he must've known that she hung out with Sophia, why the hell would he listen to anything Emma would say?

Unless Emma told somebody else to tell him. I shook my head; this was a problem to deal with later. I used the gas station as cover. Their voices traveled even with the rain.

"The fuck is taking so long," one of the teenagers asked. "We've been waiting for fucking hours."

"You need a lieutenant present for initiation, son," the adult spoke, "that way you can't just have people coming in saying that they beat a-" I cringed as he listed off slurs for different races. "-I want to do this right. I'm sure they'll send somebody down shortly." What did they mean by lieutenant? Did they mean another cape? I didn't know the structure of E88, and it was best to assume the worst.

This meant I had to get rid of them now.

I gathered my swarm to me, bugs that had been nesting inside the gas station, bed bugs, spiders, anything. I left any black widows and brown recluses alone; I didn't want to get sent to the birdcage for killing these guys. Every bug within a two-block radius started to converge on this spot, I closed my eyes, imagining the forest again, before casting the growth spell, I wasn't trying to make one bug big, doubling all of the bugs sizes would help in the rainfall and maybe demoralize them enough.

I had the flying insects completely blot out the lamppost that illuminated them, I snuffed out every light within my range.

"What the fuck?" One of the teens cried out. At that moment I sent the rest of the swarm after them. It worked to great effect, with no way to see anything, the feeling of being crawled on by what seemed to be unusually large bugs had them all swearing. I didn't know what kind of weapons they had, but my best option was to take away one of their senses and start having my insects bite them. I made sure the ones biting them weren't poisonous, but they were sure as hell feeling them now. They started screaming, and through my swarm I felt as they started running off in scattered directions.

I quickly made my way over to Charlotte clumsily, my bugs guiding me there. I removed the tape on her mouth first slowly. She didn't even cringe as I peeled it off. I sniffled.

"Who's there?" she croaked.

"It's me," I declared, a lump in my throat.

"Taylor?" Charlotte voice squeaked.

"It's me, I'm going to get you out of here," I said.

"Oh god, Taylor," Charlotte sobbed. I found the knife the adult E88 had dropped and started to cut the tape at her arms and legs.

"I'm so sorry," I was crying now too. "This is all my fault. I shouldn't have provoked them like that, I shouldn't have tried talking with you." I tried to touch the wire that they had entangled around her neck, before pulling back my hand. It was _barbed._ "I don't think the knife is going to cut this…"

"M-maybe there's a light," Charlotte said, with that, I started to move the bugs out of the lamppost, "T-Taylor, how did you do that…a-are you a-" She stopped, gasping. My bugs finally detected what appeared to be a cloud of smoke directly behind me, before it formed a person. I felt something hard smack me in the head, sending me to thee ground on my belly, followed by a powerful kick to my ribs. The hand that was holding the knife was stomped on and I let go of it. I turned my head around and there was a crossbow with a sharp bolt pointed at my face.

"Move away from the girl," Shadow Stalker commanded. I held my hands up, but I didn't move away. I was so scared and confused. What was Shadow Stalker doing here? How did she know this was happening here? Was this on her routine patrol route?

"I didn't do this to her," I pleaded. "We have to get her out."

"Move away from the girl," Shadow Stalker said again, more forcefully. Why did she sound so damn familiar?

"No, she needs help," I said, "I'm staying right here."

"And you always will be," she muttered with venom. I froze at that. In the Prison Realm Ugin narrowed his eyes.

_Things are starting to make more sense now, _Ugin said. _She's Sophia Hess. _All of my thoughts came to a screeching halt. It all made sense now, I had always thought it was because Emma's dad was a lawyer, and Sophia was on the track team. Why they were willing to just ignore everything they did. Bitterly, I wondered if Emma had abandoned me in favor of having a superhero as a friend. Did she know?

"Sophia," I breathed, stunned. Charlotte's eyes widened and Shadow Stalker stiffened. Nobody spoke, I heard caws from crows, or were those ravens, perched up on the gas station, watching intently. The crossbow started to tremble.

"You should've fucking stayed down," Shadow Stalker started to hiss, the bolt was now up against my cheek, my eyes wide with shock. How was someone like this a hero?! Did the Protectorate know? They _had_ to know! "You should have kept your head low and not done anything like the little creepy nerd you are, but you couldn't do that, could you? You've ruined everything, this was supposed to show her what true strength is, she would've seen how truly weak you are by comparison, that you couldn't stand back up! I was supposed to come in and save her, she would have been one of us! If either of you had grown the fuck up and not been a pair of little snitches, we wouldn't have had to do this!"

I didn't even bother trying to make sense of what incoherent mess Shadow Stalker or Sophia Hess was screaming at me about because I was scared so shitless. She was a god damn psychopath!

"Do you know what happens to villains that unmask heroes, Hebert?" Shadow Stalker growled. "They get sent to the birdcage, and you wouldn't last five seconds there."

"I'm not a villain!" I yelled.

"Not that it matters much now," Shadow Stalker said. She picked up the knife that I'd dropped, and pressed the blade against my throat, right where the bruise line was. This was it; I was going to die here-

Suddenly everything was enveloped in inky darkness. I couldn't hear the rain anymore, but it still fell onto my face. It was like moving in an oily fog. I moved my hand to find that it moved slower, I had to force it, like I was underwater. I was getting ready to activate the ponder spell when someone grabbed me and started to guide me, confused and deprived of all of my senses, I followed the tug until I was out of what appeared to be a black cloud. I gasped for breath and looked over, confused. It was the blonde girl from before, now wearing a skintight suit and a domino mask, emblazoned on her chest was a single eye, which would've given me huge Sauron vibes if it weren't for the fact that the color scheme was purple and black.

"Let's get out of here!" The blonde cape yelled. I tugged back towards the darkness.

"What about Charlotte?!" I yelled. At that a figure parted through the black smoke. He wore motorcycle bike leathers, his helmet too might've originally been a motorcycle helmet but it's full face visor had been sculpted to look like a skull, though the skull's proportions were very alien, the eye sockets were larger and the face longer than what was normal. He had Charlotte in both hands, the wire had been cut.

I was reeling in confusion; within the span of two minutes my entire world had been turned upside down.

Had a pair of supervillains just saved us from being murdered by a superhero?

"Time to go," the supervillain in leathers said. I hesitated for a moment; did I really want to be caught running away with a group of supervillains.

_Taylor,_ Ugin said, _she's going to kill you, leave the moral quandary for later!_

A bolt flew out from the dark clouds, flying blindly upwards and hitting the old gas prices sign. I started running with them instantly after that. Another bolt flew out, this time going between me and the blond villain.

"She is _pissed_ today," the blonde villain laughed nervously.

"When is she not pissed!?" I exclaimed; I moved my swarm into a second cloud after the inky dark one. Shadow Stalker came stomping out of the dark cloud, her voice no longer muffled by the smoke, it was high, shrill and I'm almost certain there were no action discernable words being yelled at us. I send my swarm after her, trying to block off her line of sight to us. I glanced in front of us, there was a van with opened doors.

The villain in leathers put Charlotte into one of the seats in the van turning his head slightly, he immediately jumped, a bolt passed by him and struck Charlotte in the chest. Everyone stopped, including Shadow Stalker.

Ravens circled over us.

In that moment, I reflected on how Charlotte hadn't deserved any of this, how her only crime had been being my friend.

Everything in my vision was focused on Shadow Stalker. Every bug suddenly stopped, before moving towards her, far more aggressively, but converging on her. I cast my growth spell again, but she transformed back into a black shadow and moved away from the swarm, I had my bugs intercept her there, this time, there were large hornets the size of tires that moved after her. She looked far more panicked now. I drew on the magics around me again, I was ending this now, I remember what Ugin told me, that Brockton Bay was seeped into black mana from the decay of the city.

_Taylor_, Ugin spoke, _Taylor don't- _I shut out the Spirit-Gem in my head.

I had lived in Brockton Bay my entire life, if there was any piece of land that I was going to be connected to, it would be the one who's streets I'd walked since birth. Ugin had never taught me a black spell before, but I knew they had the darker powers, I needed more, more. I had only one goal right now:

Kill Shadow Stalker.

I was aware that my hands and my swarm started to flow with a violet light. My bugs started to move, and she backed up.

"Taylor!" I was barely aware of the blonde villain screaming my name shaking my shoulder, I didn't even care that she somehow knew my name.

My bugs moved faster now towards Shadow Stalker, she tried to move into her shadow form but a single bug touched her, not her skin, but her clothing, suddenly purple veins of pure mana cracked over Shadow Stalker, traveling up into her head. The superhero screamed out in pain, dropping the crossbow and clutching at her head. I sent the rest of the swarm after her.

"Taylor, stop! You'll kill her-"One of the ravens suddenly swooped down and slashed at the blonde villain with it's talons before flying back up into it's flock. I blinked and noticed Shadow Stalker on the ground rocking back and forth, clutching her head. A motorcycle was pulling up. Both villains pulled me into the van and closed the doors.

"Regent, step on it! Armsmaster is here!" the villain in leathers said. There was a screech of wheels and a lurch as we moved further away. The last I saw was Armsmaster rushing towards the fallen Shadow Stalker, my bugs dispersing. I held back the feeling of bile in my throat, seeing what I'd wrought.

I turned to Charlotte, blood was everywhere, the bolt was in her gut. The villain in leathers pulled out a first aid kit.

"Charlotte," I cried, she looked up at me. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry…" I couldn't help it but repeat it over and over again. I felt a hand clasp mine. I looked up to see Charlotte's hand clenching mine.

"Don't be," she told me. She closed her eyes as the villains started to try and stop the bleeding.

"She doesn't have a pulse," the villain in leathers said.

I grasped onto the Spirit-Gem and I was in the Prison Realm again.

"Teach me a healing spell," I demanded. Ugin looked down at me, a sad look on his reptilian face. "Teach me one now!" I screamed.

_You know those take time to learn, _Ugin told me. _I can't help her, Taylor, all we can do is hope. _

I looked at the two villains.

"Please, take us to a hospital," I demanded.

"We're already on route to one," the blonde villain explained. "I don't know if we'll make it in time though."

The van stopped and both Grue and I exited the vehicle, pulling Charlotte carefully as we entered the Hospital. As soon as we did the receptionist pulled out the phone and started dialing.

"We need help! Someone get her into the emergency room!" I yelled.

"PRT, I've got a pair of capes here, I think they're supervillains, please send someone-" the receptionist said with a panic on the phone

"I said get some help!" I shrieked. "She's going to die!" The bugs in the hospital started to converge as I said that. The receptionist screamed before she pressed the hang up button and called the ER. Minutes later a team in scrubs rushed down with a rolling bed in tow. One of them put two fingers to her neck, shaking his head he spoke.

"She doesn't have a pulse," the second time I heard it, but I still didn't believe it. I heard shouts from behind us, I turned to see men in armor pointing guns at us. Everything was enveloped in inky darkness again and I felt myself being pulled out, when I could see again, we were outside the hospital, the van was no longer there. We kept running, we turned around the corner and the van from before came to a screeching halt.

The driver wore a venetian mask. We got back into the van and started driving away again. Away from Charlotte. I put my hand on the window and started sobbing.

Morbidly, I thought of all of my personal relationships. My mom who died, trying to call me while driving, my dad, who was broken by her death. Emma, who must've seen the signs, and had betrayed me, and now Charlotte…who…who…

The truth hit me; she had died before we had even reached the hospital.

I was a curse on everyone who was close to me.

I felt something in me, the same feeling when I had been in the locker. I wanted to escape this; this wasn't what I'd wanted. On the run, my best friend dead, because of me. I needed to be away from people. I screamed out.

I desperately wanted to run away from everything. To escape.

But I was still here. Trapped. Earthbound.

**AN: Next up is an interlude with Dovin Baan.**


	8. Interlude (Dovin)

**1.d (Interlude, Dovin)**

Dovin Baan, also known as Satellite sighed as he scrawled his notes. He noted with dissatisfaction how sloppy his hand writing had become, being blind would do that to you. He had only recently gotten his sight back, and not through his own eyes. Perched on his shoulder was a mechanical owl made of woven strands of etherium.

It had been an apology gift from Tezzeret, considering what the accident did to him. While it was nothing compared to what a true artist like Saheeli would have made, Dovin considered it absolutely beautiful.

And deadly.

More than a few times, Dovin noted in a reflection, or from the feeling on his shoulder that the strix's claws had holes on it's edges. Syringes, and knowing his boss, probably filled with venom.

Any present from Tezzeret should be seen also as a threat, Dovin noted. For instance, most of the firearms and equipment that Tezzeret sold to gangs with a flick of his finger could instantly turn into constructs that would then turn on and kill their wielders.

The Vedalken hated working for Tezzeret, but circumstances had forced them together, and Dovin had spent the past thirty years now working as a criminal. The very people that he absolutely despised. He was not an illegal arms dealer, or a drug smuggler, he had been a _minister_. He would rather be cleaning up these acts and working towards creating a _perfect_ society.

Then the War of the Spark happened, Nicol Bolas' ultimate plan to regain his former power. He'd lost, worst of all, not even to the insurgent Chandra, but that underground criminal Lazav, pretending to be Chandra. Blinded, and hunted by the Gatewatch, Dovin had been forced to flee, as a wanted criminal. It only got worse after that, he had Vraska hot on his heels and the Gatewatch's numbers had exploded.

What had been originally a small house club of planeswalkers had become a full-fledged organization across the Multiverse. There were very few places that he could hide. So, in order to survive, he had joined up with Tezzeret's Infinite Consortium. Dovin had fallen from grace and now ran with the gutter rats across the multiverse.

On top of hating his job, there was no possible room for Dovin to rise through the ranks. He had worked with Tezzeret previously under the employ of Nicol Bolas, and Tezzeret considered that a black mark on Dovin's record.

So, when Dovin came back empty handed from an operation on Ixalan, Tezzeret didn't take very kindly to it. They had an argument, before he told Dovin to stay on Earth and await further instructions.

Dovin didn't need to wait long, the next day, Dovin had been called to Cauldron's lab.

Dovin didn't know how Tezzeret came into contact with the shadowy organization, but they had reminded Dovin of the Dimir, Lazav's organization, so he'd tried to stay away from dealing with them.

Tezzeret had given him a vial.

"_Drink it,"_ Tezzeret had told him. Dovin had hesitated for ten seconds before Tezzeret had spoken again. _"You've failed me twice now, don't fail me a third time."_ Dovin then realized that Tezzeret wasn't going to give him another ten seconds to think this over. He drank the serum and immediately, the blood in his veins felt like they were on fire. He'd screamed out, his legs felt like rubber as he fell to the ground, hugging his body. He tried to planeswalk away, hoping the feeling of the blind eternities could muffle the pain, but every time he tried, he felt himself tugged back instantly.

They had given him a power serum, and it had taken away his ability to planeswalk. Originally, Dovin had feared that the shard had eaten his spark, but a quick test from Tezzeret confirmed his spark was still there.

That was how Dovin had become the very first Planeswalker-Parahuman, or rather, ParaVedalken hybrid. Unnatural, yes, but there were some benefits to it. His shard seemed to have created a parasitic relationship with his spark, when he used his magic, he could funnel it into his powers as well. The thinker power allowed him to see through cameras, he could only focus on a few at a time, but Dovin noted that he could cast through the camera's line of sight.

Tezzeret had given him sight back, but Dovin bitterly missed being able to travel from plane to plane. Now he had to rely on Tezzeret's planar portal to go anywhere, and Tezzeret had made him in charge of operations on Earth Bet while he was away.

Originally, Dovin considered this his own personal hell, forced to work with criminals and trapped on a backwater plane. However, Dovin enjoyed working with Cauldron, more in particular with Accord.

A fellow soul, Dovin thought. Trying to organize this hellish world, end world hunger, help solve society's problems. Slowly, Dovin started to drift more and more towards Cauldron. Given the chance, with no repercussions, Dovin would betray Tezzeret to them without a second thought.

Though as things were, Tezzeret was Cauldron's only way of accessing the planeswalker community, so they tolerated the Infinite Consortium's operations.

"That storm out there is beautiful," Geralf, or Cadaver as he was known on Earth Bet said. "It's a damn shame that Tezzeret said no lightning rods on our base."

"That's the sort of thing the Protectorate looks for," Dovin quipped, putting his pen down. The mechanical Strix's head swiveled to look at the eyepatch wearing Necro-Alchemist. He'd barely changed over the years, his spark had ignited after the death of his twin sister, Gisa, by his own hands too. The moment that Geralf had finally ended their rivalry for good he planeswalked out of both joy and grief.

_A parody,_ Dovin thought, _of the infamous Brother's War on Dominaria between Urza and Mishra._ Perhaps fate had a sense of humor.

"You'd think Cauldron would get these costumed freaks off our backs, we are providing them with interplanar services," Geralf said.

"They would be stupid to pull them back, someone would get suspicious," Dovin said. Honestly, one hope Dovin held with Cauldron was that perhaps if he went turncoat, they would reinstate him as a hero. That way, he could feel comfortable again, being an agent of order. He could easily fit in as a Case 53, he didn't care how low on the totem pole he'd have to start at, it would be better than this. "As long as we don't do anything stupid either, we'll be safe."

"It's no fun that way," Geralf said huffing as he wiped off a blood scalpel, "but someone sure as hell didn't tell the boss that when he took over Toybox."

"Toybox was outlined in our initial agreement," Dovin said, "we knew there'd be some blowback from making such a big move, and we planned around it accordingly."

"You know, I doubt Cauldron actually likes us," Geralf said, "I'm waiting for the moment they rat us out to the Gatewatch."

"They won't do that," said a third voice, walking into the room, "because they've already burned all of the Gatewatch's goodwill." The camera eyes of the strix swiveled again to catch Tezzeret, dressed as Tidehollow. Every footstep Tezzetet took was heavy, and the sounds of metal planes moved underneath his cloak.

"How'd they do that?" Geralf asked, tilting his head, "and why wasn't I told this."

"I told you before simply that the Gatewatch wouldn't be a problem here," Tezzeret said, sitting down, "and no, I will not explain why Cauldron will keep the Gatewatch off of us." Dovin's frown deepened. He knew it had to do with Liliana. Dovin had talked with Accord and she had been a member of Cauldron long before Accord had been.

She even had a cape name, Phantom, one of the founding members of the Protectorate.

"_How did they even brand necromancy as a heroic power,"_ Dovin had asked Accord.

"_She only summoned zombies during Endbringer fights,"_ Accord had told him,_ "otherwise, they were wraiths, rebranded as spirits from beyond helping the good fight." _

After that, Dovin had decided to learn who was even in charge of Public Relations. Whoever this Glenn Chambers was he was a powerful individual not to be underestimated.

Dovin had gone through the archives to find that Phantom had retired in 2000, around a month after Hero's death, and disappeared. Dovin had tried to figure out where she was now, but his access in Cauldron was not that high. Dovin sighed, cracking his fingers as he took his seat at the table.

"I called you here today because there's been an interesting phenomenon that has recently occurred," Dovin said. "Our Lightning Bug sensors have picked up two different cases an attempted interplanar travel." Tezzeret raised an eyebrow. "The first one happened at a lower-class high school, Winslow High. I at first had figured this was a fluke in the system, however, it's just occurred again, and potentially linked to the same person."

"Destination?" Tezzeret asked.

"None, before the walker can move into the blind eternities it's pulled back," Dovin said, "sound familiar?" Tezzeret caught the implication. It wasn't one of the other Para-walkers that Tezzeret and Cauldron had created, all of them were accounted for, on specific off plane sites, being researched on by a collaboration of Cauldron and the Infinite Consortium, or dissected by Geralf.

For a long time, Cauldron's scientists and Dovin had talked about the concept of a natural Parawalker, a Planeswalker with a shard that naturally occurred. The odds of such a thing were astronomical, planeswalkers were one in millions, and parahumans were one in thousands. You take those odds and combine them you get incredibly astronomical odds.

And one had just appeared right outside their doorstep. The very first one.

"Does Cauldron know?" Tezzeret asked.

"If they didn't know they do now," said Dovin. "Said Parawalker appears to have caused quite a bit of commotion tonight. Came to a hospital with a dead civilian trying to get her medical aid. Said parahuman was identified as the same one that had gotten into an altercation with Shadow Stalker, who's now comatose." Dovin glanced over at Tezzeret, who was smiling now. The only thing that one could see of him was his lower face. Dovin had seen only once what was underneath the cloak, and it made him shudder.

"So, not in the Protectorate's good graces right now?" asked Tezzeret.

"Obviously," Dovin quipped. "She was seen with Grue from the Undersiders, that alone puts her in their bad graces."

Tezzeret leaned back, his etherium arm tapping it's talons on the metal table.

"Does this parawalker have a name?" he asked.

"Taylor Hebert."

He stopped and turned his head to Dovin, who tilted his head in confusion.

"Thank you, Mister Baan," Tezzeret said, "it seems I might need to get in touch with them." With that he got up and slowly walked out the door.

Dovin pursed his lips.

"That was strange," Geralf said. "You know why he reacted that way to the name?" Dovin shook his head.

"No," Dovin sighed, "I've already gone through her background history. Nothing to note, high grades in middle school, low grades in high school. Mother, English Professor, died of a car crash two years ago, father works for the Union at the docks." Geralf shrugged.

"Might've been nothing," the Necro-Alchemist shrugged. "I'm going to assume that you won't be letting me slice her up, see what makes her tic? Might give us a lot more insight into the relationship between shards and sparks." He waggled his single visible eyebrow.

"Kill and dissect the first natural hybrid?" Dovin turned his chair towards him, apprehensively. "Are you mad?" Geralf nodded enthusiastically. "She's of a lot more benefit alive than dead. She might be the only one in existence."

"That just makes me want her even more," Geralf said, "I could make a Skaab out of her, she'd still move, I could even make her sing."

"No, Geralf," Dovin said in a low tone, "don't make me have to report this talk with Tezzeret. You know how he hates having to clean up after your messes. Who knows, you might be the next one to have to drink the serum." Geralf frowned at that before clearing his throat.

"If you'll excuse me then, Dovin," he said, "I'll be in the lab." The necro-alchemist walked out of the room and Dovin sighed. He needed fresh air. He got up and walked outside. The rain was starting to clear as he stood outside. Their base had a beautiful view of the city from above. The lights were all on, he could hear the crickets.

He hadn't heard her approach him from behind, but he suddenly felt a piece of paper in braille slip into his hand. The Strix's head swiveled around, but Dovin knew it was useless to try and catch her on the construct's cameras. Not that he wanted Tezzeret to be privy to these conversations. He passed his long blue fingers over it.

**How close is he to completing his new version of the portal?** Dovin took out a journal, low and started to scrawl on it.

**It is already done.** The piece of paper slipped out of his hand, before a new piece went into it. He put his hands over it.

**Can you acquire the schematics? **The braille message asked.

**It will take time. He lets no one see them, most of the technology he hoards in his personal lair, what comes out is what he is willing to sell. **Dovin scrawled back.

**You bring us the portal; we'll bring you into the fold. **That got Baan's attention. This was what he had been looking for, a chance to get out of this organization.

**You have yourself a deal, Contessa.**


	9. Mending 2-1

**Mending 2.1**

I woke up, on both planes, but I did not move. It was like I was paralyzed, but I wasn't, I simply didn't have the will to get up and move.

"…Did you honestly think I didn't care about you? I built an empire in your memory!" It was Ugin's brother.

_An empire of cruelty, with terrified subjects, did you also start the Elder Dragon War for me?_ Ugin responded.

"Vaevictus was encroaching on my territory, him and his siblings would have destroyed my empire," the mortal dragon growled. "Did you tell the girl the truth, that you believed I didn't care for you?" I realized I was listening in on a conversation that was meant to be private, now the stares from Ugin's Brother were starting to make sense. He'd heard Ugin's story of how his spark had ignited. I didn't know who Vaevictus was, I'd ask Ugin later maybe.

_I still know it to be true, I have looked into your mind, there is no love there now, _said Ugin.

"Because you abandoned me!" Ugin's brother roared, I could hear the popping of bones as he stood up on two legs. "I mourned you for years! I tried to be a better ruler for you! Then what do you do? You appear before me after years and years, acting all high and mighty. You taunt me with your powers, you sneer at everything I've spent my life accomplishing, and then you leave me again."

There was a long silence before Ugin's spoke:

_You were only upset that I couldn't share the secrets of planeswalking with you. Tell me, was it really my abandonment that made your spark ignite, or was it that I had something you didn't?_ There was another pause.

"I don't know anymore," Ugin's brother admitted.

_If you're looking for sympathy from me, you won't get it. You're a cruel creature, nothing you have ever done has been for the benefit of the multiverse, you've never sacrificed anything except for selfish gain._

"You're one to talk," the mortal dragon sneered. "I've talked with Nahiri, you don't give a damn about anyone else except your little garden planes and experiments-"

My leg moved a little and I could feel the wind change as the mortal dragon's head twitched towards me.

"We'll finish this conversation later," growled Ugin's brother. The old dragon limped off.

_Taylor, _Ugin stated. I glanced over at him, he watched me, puzzled. He seemed at a loss for what to do. I had to wonder if Ugin had ever felt loss before, or if what his brother did to him had shut him off completely. He was trying, I could see he was trying so hard to find something to say but he couldn't.

I curled up and kept myself from whimpering. I couldn't cry again, not in front of Ugin. Not because I respect him, not because I spent so much time looking up to him, but because I knew he could never be what I needed most.

_Taylor_, Ugin repeated. That patient tone again.

"She was my only friend," I finally said. Fuck me, my voice was wavering, I could feel the lump in my throat. "She killed her. She didn't do anything wrong; she was just my friend." Ugin looked down at me, as if he couldn't find something, and no matter how hard he tried.

_There was nothing that you did wrong for her, _Ugin finally said. _You are not to blame for this. _

Shadow Stalker.

Sophia motherfucking Hess.

"That monster," I started, "she's a _hero_, she's supposed to be a protector." I couldn't find other words, because I just remembered, Sophia crumpling to the ground, my glowing insects swarming her. "…Did I kill her?"

_No_, Ugin said, _the spell you cast was something akin to a mind rot spell. I don't know how effective it was, you might've destroyed her mind, you might've put her into a coma. _In the back of my mind, I knew that the Protectorate and the PRT would be after me for this, I had to wonder, were they all like Shadow Stalker? Hiding behind smiles and good press? I didn't want to be in this city anymore.

I didn't want to be anywhere on this world anymore. I just wanted to be alone, someplace.

"I didn't spark there either," I said. "I felt something, but…in the end, it did nothing."

_Your spark did ignite,_ Ugin said. _But something is keeping you in place now._ I clenched my fist.

"I…I don't want to be here anymore, Ugin," I said, "I want to leave."

_We'll find out what's wrong with your spark, _Ugin reassured me.

"…Can you show me?" I asked. Ugin tilted his head. I started to stand up. "Can you show me another world?"

Ugin took a moment before he slowly nodded, he flicked his hand and suddenly, I wasn't in the Prison Realm anymore. I could hear the ocean, it had been a constant in my life, but always from a portside. My hand rested against a sheer mountain, from it moss and trees on perches hung. I gripped onto the moss. Out in my view I could see sheer peaks of islands, covered in vegetation, large waves crashing against them, on one of the peninsulas were streams of waterfalls that poured back into the ocean.

I watched as large, dog sized flying animals dove into the waves and came back out. They were like dragons, but they only had two legs and two wings as opposed to four legs and two wings. They were colored like tropical beta fish, striking blues and reds. I stepped out, crossing over the shadow of the cliffside I was under and into the sunlight, the weeds rustled as I foot passed through them. The smells, the sounds, the touch, it was all so real.

"…Is this an illusion?" I asked. Ugin suddenly appeared behind me, he was easily as tall as the mountain whos' shade I hid behind.

_Yes, it is a memory too, _Ugin said. _Of when I was younger, and explored the multiverse. _

"What is this place?" I asked.

_Shandalar, _Ugin said.

"Shandalar," I repeated. I wanted to stand there forever, just watching the waves pass by. I swallowed. "I'm sorry I cut you off when I attacked Sophia." Ugin glanced downward.

_You were distressed, _Ugin said. It crept on me that Ugin didn't chastise me for attacking Sophia. At all. _We now know though that you are very talented in black magic. I think we'll leave learning red and white for later. We'll focus on those three colors. _I swallowed. Ugin was alright with me using black magic? Maybe the connotations of black magic from my world were getting in the way of my view on things.

Then I realized that Ugin knew black magic. He knew all colors, but he knew that kind of magic as well.

I was starting to realize that being the Guardian of the Multiverse didn't mean you were a good person perhaps. I thought of Ugin's conversation with his brother, what he was starting to say at the end. He'd even told me himself, that he didn't look at the individual and did what he thought was best for the whole.

I wondered how many hard decisions he'd made, and if in his shoes, I would do the same.

I heard a door opening, and Shandalar faded away.

A dream. That's all it was.

I was in a rather spacious room with dog toys strewn about it, it smelt of dog too. Early morning light lit up the room. The bed I was on was comfortable at least.

The door opened and the blonde villain from the night before walked in. She wasn't in her costume, which struck me as odd, until I remembered I'd met her before. She'd told me where Charlotte was.

She dragged in a chair with her as she moved it in front of the bed. She sat down in it before she finally gave me a smile. To be honest, I was really nervous, I was gracious they had saved me and tried to save Charlotte, but I was also very confused.

"It must be really weird," she finally said. "A bunch of villains come in and save you from a hero. Though, I wouldn't exactly call Shadow Stalker a hero. Not anymore."

"Am I being kidnapped?" I asked. She shook her head.

"No, it was a close call with the PRT at the hospital with you and Grue, but we managed to escape," she said. "After that we brought you here. To our base."

"Who are you guys?" I asked, cautiously.

"We're the Undersiders," she said, "we primarily do hit and runs, heists, robberies, that sort of thing." I eyed her cautiously.

"Why did you save me?" I asked. "Why did you help me back in the alleyway, how did you know?"

"I simply know these things," she said cheekily. Thinker then_, _I thought. She clasped her hands together before sighing. "I won't lie, this was a pitch." A pitch? Oh.

"You're trying to recruit me," I said.

"Yeah," the villain admitted, "before we go any further, I want to apologize. There are some rules, and I violated one of those last night, though, you didn't exactly have a costume. You didn't plan on this being your first night out, but still, I know your name, I think it's fair that you know mine."

"Wait, really?" I asked. "Aren't you supposed to be rule breakers? That's the whole point of being a villain, right?" She laughed.

"I can't speak for Empire or ABB, but here we respect the unwritten rules," said the villain. "I think it's important too, when you don't respect them, bad things happen and things can start to escalate." I furrowed my brows.

"You mean like Shadow Stalker," I caught myself at the last second, I was about to call her 'Sophia'.

"Like with Shadow Stalker," she repeated with a nod. "They're keeping hush about it right now but she's in a coma. You fucked her up really bad." I froze at that. On one hand, any sympathy Sophia Hess could have garnered from me didn't exist anywhere in the multiverse now. On the other…

"And they're blaming me," I said with a groan. I had just set myself in the crosshairs of the Protectorate and PRT. Attacking a Ward or hurting one was bad. I had put her in a coma. "I'm so screwed." The villain shook her head.

"You're not dead in the water yet. I'm Lisa, but in costume please call me Tattletale," the villain said. I blinked, or the longest time to me, villains didn't really even seem like people. Or the ones I thought of were Lung or Kaiser, horrendous people with terrible agendas, slave trafficking, ethnic genocide.

And here this supervillain was just casually telling me who she was because she knew who I was.

"Taylor," I repeated, dumbly, she knew regardless. "I…don't have a cape name yet."

"That's alright, Taylor," Lisa said. She swallowed.

"…Charlotte's really dead, isn't she?" I asked. Lisa sighed.

"There's been no news on that, but she'd lost her pulse a good five minutes before we'd arrived at the hospital, so I'm sorry but she's dead," Lisa said. I bristled.

"What do you mean there's been no news on that," I repeated, "she had a bolt through her chest, Shadow Stalker's bolt!"

"A bolt she wasn't supposed to have anymore," Lisa agreed, "believe me, the Protectorate and PRT know, the clues were all there, but to the Protectorate, their public image is _everything_, Taylor. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if it got out that Shadow Stalker, a _ward_, had murdered a civilian."

I thought for a moment about the public outrage. People would continue to investigate, maybe they'd find out who she was and what she had been doing out of cape. Questions would be asked, why the PRT hadn't stopped any of this, why she'd been given a free pass to do whatever she wanted, despite being a probationary ward. They'd ask questions about the other wards, other heroes, on whether they were trustworthy. So, they'd brush this under a rug, probably lock Shadow Stalker away, come up with an excuse, and pretend it didn't happen.

_My arch nemesis, _Ugin groaned, _politics. Everything she's said has made sense so far, she's not trying to lie to us. _

"But why?" I asked in the Prison Realm.

_I don't know, _Ugin said. _Though if they're trying to recruit you, it's best to be honest with your coworkers. Especially in a risky line of business such as this. _

"Does her family at least know?" I asked. Lisa sighed.

"I'd imagine so," Lisa said, "but they're probably being forced to keep hush about it, one way or another. Or they're being told something very different. I expect them to know your identity soon enough. The investigation has been happening now for the past ten hours." I'd been out for ten hours. I immediately thought of my dad, who must be scared for me, he must've come home to find I wasn't there.

"We're not going to force you to join us," Lisa said, "we understand the rescue didn't go as planned, and, well, you might need time. Our leader, Grue, the guy with the skull helmet, he's really nervous right now. I told him that there was a potential cape for recruitment, didn't tell him the details so he does not like the situation we're in right now. Bitch, you haven't met her yet, she doesn't want to split the money five ways, and she's chased off recruits in the past too. Regent…really doesn't care, I just told him I'd pay him a thousand to do this for us and he did." I blinked at that.

"You…you just have that money to throw around?" I asked apprehensively. The prospect of replacing all of the stuff that Madison had trashed just a few days ago had been a daunting thought, and these guys just traded that money around. If Regent was that driver, then all he really did was drive that van.

"Villains, remember, we make bank. Our…sponsor of sorts pays us two-thousand a month simply to stay on the Undersiders team, not to mention what he pays us, per job." Lisa said. That…was a lot of money.

"I'll…I'll think about it," I swallowed. I didn't exactly like it, in a weird way, I was glad they'd saved me, but I was also scared. I knew I'd been outed too, that PRT was probably going to be waiting back at home, but I wanted to go there first. I needed him right now.

If they tried to take me, I'd die first.

Lisa gave me a look that I couldn't discern.

"Taylor, what happened wasn't your fault. I know more than anything you want to escape, you want to be free of all of this, and you've been hit by the realization that no matter what you do, you can't," Lisa said with a swallow. "But please, before you make any sort of big decision, think it over."

"Even joining the Undersiders?" I asked tensely.

"Yes," Lisa said, "even that. We have a bit of a ride back to your home; you can consult your golden egg friend on the way there."


	10. Mending 2-2

**Mending 2.2**

Ugin looked into the pools at the scene with alarm, I made my shocked response in the meditation realm.

Three different responses came to my mind:

"_I don't know what you're talking about." _

"_What do you actually know?"_

"_Of course, there's a friend in the egg, it's an egg. It'll hatch into a chicken. I consult the unborn yolk for advice and in return it gives me dark powers."_

I settled with:

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's okay, I don't outright understand it myself," said Lisa with a tilt of her head and a crook of her smile. "Whatever's in the egg, you use it to focus your powers, the trump part of it, and it can put you into a heightened state of awareness. Am I on the right track?"

_Oh, good, she doesn't know anything, _stated Ugin. We both sighed in relief in the Prison Realm.

"No, that's wrong too," Lisa said. Ugin and I's heads turned again. She then shrugged. "I'll figure it out eventually."

"I'd really appreciate it if you didn't," I said.

"Oh, I know you mean to keep it a secret," Lisa said. "So I won't tell the other Undersiders." I sighed in relief.

"Thanks," I said, rather tensely. It scared me because this was the first person to discover the Spirit-Gem: A Thinker Thief who specializes in deductive thinking.

"I don't intend to take it," she said. "I doubt it would work for me." I didn't bother answering because she might've already gotten the answer. She shook her head. "Sorry about that." With that the door opened. I heard a television on, it was a news channel from the sounds of it. What we opened up to was a loft, a really nice one too. It was bigger than my house, actually everything was bigger here. It was also a bit of a mess, it reminded me of a morning after a slumber party with Emma when I was younger.

Those memories held a bitter taste in my mouth now, for more than one reason.

"Nothing yet?" asked Lisa. There were two teenagers on a couch, one of them more pretty than handsome, he was the leaner of the two with shaggy black hair. Regent? The other was another teenager, though he was probably a foot taller than me, and I'm pretty tall for my age, well defined muscles, dark skin, shoulder length cornrows. Judging by the height: Grue. Then there was a girl with a squarish face that was scowling at me from one of the tables, there were three dogs at her feet that watched me intently as well. Bitch, I guess? Lisa quickly moved between me and them and gave her a look.

"Well, she's got a new name," Gue said, "I hope you like Skitter, because that's what they're calling you. It was brief, all they said that Shadow Stalker here was assaulted by Skitter and that she's in recovery."

Skitter? Ugh, it's not the worst name, but I don't know if it fit…also, I was annoyed, I didn't even get a chance to name myself.

"Other than that, there's been nothing," Grue said.

"Yeah, so give me the remote man," Regent whined. Grue sighed and gave Regent the remote. Regent immediately started to just flick through the channels, never stopping on one channel. Grue looked annoyed but got up and fished his pocket for some keys.

"How're you holding up?" Grue asked. I tried to find words to evoke how I felt right now, but I was drawing some heavy blanks. "Rough then." Grue concluded. He opened a door and a set of old rusted spiral staircase, an absolute contrast with the living spaces I'd seen. Our footsteps echoed with metallic clangs as we came down into what had to be an old factory building. Dust covered over plastic sheets. Shafts of sunlight came through sunlight near the ceiling. All in all, it was actually a really nifty base of operations.

Grue cleared his throat. I turned to him.

"Look, we'd appreciate it if you kept…all of this a secret," he said, emphasizing by circling his hand around his face and then bring his hand out to the abandoned factory. "Tattletale says you can be trusted, but I want to hear it from you first."

I thought for a moment. Would I even sell out the Undersiders? No, they'd saved my life for one, two, I don't think I had anything to gain from it. If I went to the PRT to try and smooth things over with them by giving info on the Undersiders, they'd probably laugh and send me off to the Bird Cage, _then_ go for the Undersiders.

From what they told me; a lot of their crimes were theft. Meanwhile, I was Little Miss 'I Put a Ward in a Fucking Coma'.

"I'm not going to rat you guys out," I said, "you…at least tried." Grue flinched at that. The bolt that had hit Charlotte had originally been meant for him. His shoulders sagged.

"Look-" Grue started to say before I cut him off.

"It was my fault," I said, "she was in that whole situation because of me." Tattletale had an odd look on her face. "I did something so selfish and stupid. I didn't think they'd go this far, but..." I swallowed and sighed. I wasn't going to go into this now. Tattletale looked as though she wanted to say something before Grue spoke again.

"We should get going," Grue said, "let's get you home." With that we left out a side door. I looked over at the brick factory that was their base. We didn't take the van from last night. Instead we took a truck, Grue took out his smartphone. "Where are we heading?"

I told him the address. He put it into the smartphone and we started driving off.

"What do we do now?" I asked Ugin inside the Prison Realm.

_Not a lot of avenues exist right now, _Ugin said. _I wanted to avoid the attention of the authorities, the more people who know about this place, the gem, the more likely it is to be compromised. _I nodded.

"I don't want you to fall into the hands of the PRT," I said with perhaps too much venom.

_Agreed,_ Ugin said. _Turning ourselves into the authorities runs the risk of compromising the Spirit-Gem. Or just putting you into the Bird Cage. Though, potentially, you could be made into a probationary ward. _That thought made my heart rate skyrocket.

"I…" A pause in my words. "I would have to hide you if that happened."

_I know, you could potentially dig me up again when you turn eighteen. _Ugin said. _But the wards are not appealing right now, are they?"_

"Hell no," I growled. In retrospect, it was sickly ironic, I used to want to be a hero so much. I looked up to heroes like Alexandria and Phantom as role models. When I had first been offered this apprenticeship, I thought that maybe I could be a hero in a similar vein to Myrddin.

I never would have thought things would turn out like this.

_Which leaves two options, _Ugin stated. _Independent is too dangerous. You are too high priority of an item right now. One, we abuse the Unwritten Rules and simply don't come out as a cape anymore, the PRT can wait for Skitter reappear but she won't. We learn what's wrong with your spark and teach you magic. The other option is the Undersider's offer._

"You don't think that joining with Supervillains is a bad idea?" I asked.

Ugin glanced into the pool, I could see in the water's reflection that he was watching both Grue and Lisa…or Tattletale up at the front.

_I have watched great acts of compassion be carried out by thieves with hands painted red, and acts of vile cruelty condoned by great protectors and leaders._

"So, what, the Undersiders are the good guys while the Protectorate are the bad guys?" I asked. Ugin turn his head towards me.

_People are not so cut and dry, you may admire one aspect of a person but feel revolted by another part of them. The PRT and Protectorate greatly benefit from propaganda, their opposition doesn't. This doesn't mean they are good people, simply that the answer you will find might be more complicated. Sometimes people have to make hard choices, and those choices will paint them in either light._

"Then what's the right answer here? How can I know what I'm supposed to do?" I asked, desperately. The Spirit Dragon looked down at me. "Do I hide? Do I turn myself in? Do I go and join them?" I emphasized by bringing my hand over to the water's reflection of the two.

_What do you think is the right choice?_ Ugin asked. I opened my mouth to answer him but only hissing breath came out. If I joined the heroes, I'd be fighting against people like the Undersiders, and while their intentions might've been pragmatic, they still saved me. If I joined the Undersiders, what kind of acts would I be committing against people? I had to wonder, with what Sophia ha gotten away with, what she had done to me, to Charlotte, was that any different. My whole body felt chilled, but there was no cold. It was a void, an absence of heat.

"I don't know what to do," I finally answered, no, more begged, I hugged myself to ail the chill. "I'm stuck, Ugin. I'm stuck…" The Spirit Dragon stiffened to that. "Nothing makes sense, I'm so scared right now, that I'm going to hurt more people. That by being with my dad, I'm going to hurt him, but I wanna see him…" I wanted mom more. She would know what to do. What would she think, me putting a Ward in a coma and driving around with villains?

I thought of when she had died. She had set up a letter to each of us, in case of her death. Dad never let me read the one she gave me, but I remember, the look on his face, when he read his, whatever it had said, it upset him. He had burnt it and gone out drinking. It was the only time he'd ever done that.

At this moment I wanted to read that letter, wherever it was hidden. It was the last connection I really had to her, and maybe something she wrote might help me.

_You are not of the right mind to be making this decision, Taylor, _said Ugin. _You are tired, and haven't had a chance to truly rest. Whatever your decision, I'll be ready to assist you. _He looked tense, as though something had stirred in him. An unease.

I nodded, before I finally took note of outside the Prison Realm.

Grue spoke up.

"How much do you know about the Unwritten Rules," he asked. I inhaled and let out a sigh.

"I've researched what I could find, I know that neither side is supposed to attack the other outside of costume," I said.

"It might be what keeps you safe," Grue said. "Look, I'm not saying that joining us is the end all be all, but otherwise, I think you should stick to a civilian life. You seem like a good person, just caught up in all of this mess." I glanced over at Lisa, who nodded. The car lurched to a stop.

Lisa pulled out a paper with a number and handed it to me.

"Call me if you change your mind," she said. I looked down at the paper, there was a phone number on it…along with another message:

_**Or if you just need someone to talk to.**_

I nodded. I opened the door to let myself out when Lisa spoke again.

"Taylor," she called, I stopped midway through the truck. "I know it's all messed up. I know you feel like everything is your fault, and that there's something wrong with you, but there isn't. You didn't deserve anything that happened, and Charlotte didn't take something that was meant for you. Just…don't do anything rash before you get time to think things over."

I stopped for a brief moment, I nodded, halfheartedly.

"Good luck," Grue said.

With that I left the car and walked up the driveway, my dad's car was there. Good, he was waiting for me. I stopped and paused, having the swarm feel things out. That's when I noticed. The entirety of the house was empty of bugs. It was a deadzone, where it hadn't been before. I heard caws, and snapped my head up to the power lines above me.

I thought of how Ravens weren't found on this part of the East Coast, and how these were too big to be the crows I grew up around. It was also winter, and despite Brockton Bay's warm climate usually the birds migrated south still. One of the ravens with an old acorn in it's mouth landed on a van that I only just now noticed. It was parked across the street.

Lisa and Grue were looking at it too. My heart rate rose, I started to gather my swarm to me, none of the bugs I'd kept in the house were there so I had to draw them quickly to me, I realized that it wouldn't be fast enough. I started to make a run back for the truck. Lisa and Grue's heads were ducked.

The raven tapped the acorn in it's mouth against the hood of the van.

Once.

I was fifteen feet away from the truck. The windows opened.

Twice.

The door to Grue's truck opened, I panted hard as I sprinted. Darkness only started to pour out of the truck from opened windows.

Thrice.

The van's door burst open, men armed to the teeth and covered in body armor poured out, aiming rifles and grenade launchers at me. I stepped into the oily darkness feeling resistance and feeling foam and what I assume was tranquilizers pass over me. I got in the truck and it burst into motion. At the house I saw more PRT Troopers come out of it before we were covered in darkness. I closed the door after feeling for it before trying to gasp for breath.

They'd attacked me at my own house.

The darkness then lifted and I saw both Grue and Lisa, Lisa turned back towards me and I saw she was wearing a paper bag with eye holes cut out. The same with Grue. She quickly handed me one as well.

I looked at the paper bag.

When in Rome, I guess.

Tattletale looked up behind us, the one van was following us. That's when we heard the revving of a motorcycle.

"Ah shit," Tattletale groaned. I looked behind us to see a blue motorcycle coming passing over the van, in it was a man dressed in blue armor, and Halberd was attached to the side.

"I thought they couldn't attack us out of mask!" I exclaimed.

"We'll worry about that when we don't have Armsmaster after us," Tattletale said. I quickly scoured Grue's truck for bugs, there were a few, the only one I could find of importance was a spider that lived under the seat. I glanced over at Tattletale.

"He doesn't have a missile launcher on that bike of his, does he?" I asked.

"I doubt the PRT would ever let him have something that dangerous on a bike," Grue said.

"Oh, he's got missile launchers," Tattletale said, pointing to the bike. "They shoot tiny rockets…filled with containment foam. He won't shoot now because he risks causing an accident." While they were talking, I had the one spider from under the seat crawl into the back of the truck, I put down the other seats.

"What're you doing?" asked Grue.

"Buying us time," I said, gathering mana to me. "Can you open the back hatch from there?"

"Yeah," Grue said.

"Do it on my signal," I said, as I started to focus the green mana into this single spider. Focus, focus. Each part one at a time. "Tattletale, tell me where those missiles with containment foam are." She turned around to look, glancing for a moment at the growing wolf spider, then at the motorcycle. She crawled out from the passenger's seat and into the back.

Ten seconds later Armsmaster was about ten feet away now, and getting closer.

"There!" She pointed at a side.

"Now!" I exclaimed, the spider was growing larger and larger. The door opened and I quickly had the growing spider jump out. Armsmaster was too close to react and the Spider wrapped it's eight legs around him and the Motorcycle, I quickly, before I would lose the range and control over the spider, had it bite down on the covering where the cannisters were.

An instant later the giant spider and Armsmaster were completely encased in foam, along with the entire lane. The PRT van that had been lagging behind stopped immediately, and I exhaled. Dropping the spell returning the spider to it's original size in the foam.

I was upset, but I didn't want to leave Armsmaster stuck in there with a giant spider that would try and eat him.

The hatch closed itself.

"I think we're safe," Tattletale said.

"You said that last time and that turned out to be wrong," I growled. "The fuck, I thought there were rules!"

"There are," Tattletale, "from what little I could gather, they thought they could abuse a loophole."

"What loophole?" I asked.

"The PRT aren't beholden to the rules, they're not capes," Tattletale said. "So, they send the PRT to grab you. From there either prison or Wards for you." I stared at her. "That's just my guess."

"And Armsmaster, what about him?" I asked.

"I don't think he was supposed to be there," Tattletale said. "Or maybe he was there to observe or something and when he saw we put on paper bags, he considered that masked." Another pause. "No, he definitely saw that we had paper bags on and decided that was enough."

I took off the paper bag on my head, the others did too.

"So, what now?" I asked, I felt like I'd been asking that question a lot, recently.

"Now? Lisa asked. "I doubt they'll try this again, they had one chance and they blew it. If they do it a second time, it'll set precedence for breaking the rules and everyone in Brockton Bay will notice. From there, it's escalation, villains will take that as a free card to attack heroes out of costume, their families, and then someone higher up will have to come down on them."

"…So, after this we can just loop around to my house?" I asked. Lisa shook her head.

"I wouldn't," she admitted. "I doubt your father's actually there, no, he wouldn't be. He's at PRT headquarters being questioned."

"They won't throw him in jail, will they?" I asked, worried. Lisa shook her head.

"They have nothing to charge him with," Lisa explained, "he'll probably be let go before too long."

I closed my eyes.

"I wanted to talk to him," I said. "I wanted his advice. Now he thinks I'm a supervillain and that I go around maiming Wards for fun."

"You will," Lisa reassured me. "The PRT won't try this shit again." I sighed.

"So, I guess you have your answer," I said, "not like I have much of a choice." I'm stuck.

Grue and Lisa gave me a concerned look, before Lisa sighed.

"We'll be back at the base shortly, think things over," Lisa said. "We'll talk there."

I looked out the window as we stopped at a stop sign. On the sidewalk, I noticed an old man, he was in immaculate robes, with white hair and a beard. He stared at me with glowing yellow eyes, and there were two things I noticed to my discomfort. One, I had seen this man before, and two, he was smiling right at me.

The light turned green and we moved away. Leaving the man behind.


	11. Mending 2-3

**Mending 2.3**

The rest of the drive back to the abandoned factory was quiet. Lisa seemed deep in thought about something, as though a thought disturbed her. We finally got back to the factory, went through the side entrance and went back upstairs. The television was on, along with a lot of explosive noises. It took me a moment longer to realize that Regent was playing video games. Bitch glared over at us from the coffee table. Correction, she glared over at me.

"What's she doing back here?" Bitch growled. "I thought you were getting rid of her."

"PRT was waiting at her home," Grue answered.

"So? Should have just left her," Bitch said. I furrowed my eyebrows at that. I opened my mouth to say something but Grue spoke first.

"Rachael," Grue said, I was surprised by the sudden use of Bitch's real name. "We're in a lot of shit right now. You want my practical answer? If we left her for the PRT to pick up that could have compromised our location."

"I wouldn't have told anyone," I hissed out. The back of my mind, I wondered again, would I have?

Grue closed his eyes sitting down, he clasped his hands against his nose and gave a long sigh. There was a long silence.

"We need to talk this over," Grue said finally, he turned to Regent. "Can you turn off that game?" Regent didn't acknowledge Grue for the first five seconds before he finally paused it and turned around. "Okay, as of right now, no matter what we do, even if I was ruthless enough to tie Skitter up and deliver her to the PRT with a bow on top, we are still in association with her now. Nothing we do is going to change that, the PRT and the Protectorate are going to be on our asses."

I swallowed. He didn't want me on the Undersiders because of how much trouble I was drawing to them.

"Skitter," Grue said, I turned to him. "Look, what is it you actually get out of this if you join us?" I opened my mouth, then closed it. What did I want from the Undersiders? I probably wouldn't have to worry about school now, so I could continue to hone in my magics, actually amass my powers, learn how to use them better.

Maybe I could use Lisa's power to help with Ugin an I's research into parahumans?

"I don't know," I said. "I…I was just a normal teenager until this all happened." Lisa snorted at that. "I thought maybe I'd be a hero, but I hadn't been sure…"

"Sucks to see how things actually work, doesn't it?" Grue asked. "Shadow Stalker? She's hit me in the gut with a bolt before, none of this is new. There's rules to follow, both you and her broke those rules."

"She killed Charlotte," I sternly said. In the back of my mind I did understand that by letting my anger take hold, I'd put myself into this situation.

"And you put her in a coma, if she was some nobody cape, I'm sure she wouldn't be missed. But she was a Ward, probationary or not you don't fuck with the wards like that." Grue insisted. "Look, she deserved it, but in the eyes of the protectorate, you fucked up a junior superhero. That's what the issue is."

I closed my eyes.

"If you don't want me, out with it," I said. "I'll leave right now."

Grue looked surprised, Bitch-or Rachael looked hopeful. I couldn't determine what Lisa was thinking and Regent, I don't think he even really cared either way.

"It's not that," Grue said, "you have to understand, our line of work is high risk. We need to be able to one hundred percent trust that the person next to us has our back. All of us joined willingly and know what it entails to be villains. You? You hadn't even started the game yet." I didn't know how I felt about calling it a game. "You didn't get to make the choice for yourself. So, when we're in a situation which requires hard decisions to be made, I need to know you won't hesitate and get any of us killed."

I nodded, pragmatic, but it made sense. I honestly didn't know what to do.

"Help me Ugin, tell me what to do," I pleaded.

It would be so much easier if my spark would fully ignite, I could just run away. I wouldn't have to deal with the PRT and the Protectorate hunting me down, I—

I wouldn't have to face my father when I got home.

That filled me with more dread than facing off against Alexandria herself. He probably thought I had been doing this for a while. I hadn't, or well, I had been lying to him the whole time. About Ugin and the Spirit-Gem. I had just gotten my dad back, and it had taken me nearly dying in the locker to get him back! I didn't want to lose him again.

As I looked up at the Spirit Dragon I had to wonder, had he ever even been in a situation like this, he always seemed so much larger than life, but I was just so small.

_We return home as we originally intended,_ Ugin said, _we get actual rest there and think this through._

I nodded. I swallowed before I spoke outside the Prison Realm.

"You're right," I said, "I need to think this through." I stood up.

"Where are you going?" Grue asked.

"Home," I answered.

"You sure you wanna do that," said Regent, "it's probably crawling with PRT troopers right now. Wouldn't surprise me if every superhero in Brockton Bay is waiting in your kitchen."

"If they are, they are," I said. "I just…I need something." I wanted that letter, it seemed like the only chance I'd get to have any sort of guidance from mom.

"They won't be," Lisa said.

"You sure?" Grue asked, turning towards her. "You weren't right last time."

"I work with information given to me," Lisa said, "with PRT being as tight lipped as they are right now, I'm only getting little tidbits. All I can say is something's got the PRT scared, terrified even."

"Well yeah," Regent said, "if it got out what actually happened, they're fucked. Completely screwed, up shit creek without a paddle."

"No, not that, something has happened, while we were lying low, and it's got them spooked," Lisa said.

"All the more reason she can't go home. They'll be waiting there and this time we won't get a tip off," Grue said. It was the first time the ravens were mentioned, and Lisa felt uncomfortable.

"There was a third party there," Lisa answered, "someone tipped us off that the PRT was there."

"Those Ravens were there when we first met Skitter too," Grue realized. "You don't have bird control in your list of trump powers, do you?" I shook my head.

"No, I can only control bugs," I said. Lisa tilted her head at that. "Are there any bird capes in the bay?" I had done a lot of research and never found one. But these guys had on the field experience, they'd know more.

"No," Lisa said. "Whoever it is, they attacked me when I tried to stop you from attacking Shadow Stalker."

That made everyone pause at that implication.

"Whatever the case," Lisa said, "that was their one chance and we got away. They'll try something else now, sneakier." Lisa looked at me. "Be careful for that." I nodded.

"Thanks for the advice," I walked towards the door.

Grue seemed bothered but Lisa put her hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry," I said, "I won't tell anyone."

"I know," Grue said, "just stay safe, Skitter." It occurred to me then that Grue also knew my name, but had refused to use it. I wasn't married to the Skitter name, but in a weird way, I thought that this was his way of respecting my secret identity.

"Thanks, Grue, I will," I answered. With that, I left.

* * *

I wandered through Brockton Bay; the sky was pale as I walked towards my destination. I was tempted to use a payphone to call my dad, but I didn't know if the PRT had let him go yet or not. I kept my hood up as I walked, every time I saw someone glance at me, I felt absolutely uncomfortable.

My neighborhood was in view now, and I climbed up the sidewalk. That's when I finally noticed her, waiting in my driveway.

Emma.

My eyes widened with rage.

_Do not attack her, do not give the PRT a reason to come after you,_ Ugin quickly advised me. _This could be that attempt Lisa mentioned._ Would the PRT use Emma as bait like that? I didn't know.

I wanted so bad to make her pay for what she'd done. She was the reason Charlotte was dead. I could kill her so easily, I didn't even need magic, just a black widow spider.

She immediately got in the way of the door. She wasn't wearing a smile anymore.

"You ruined everything," Emma said, almost in a hiss.

"Get out of my way," I demanded.

"You couldn't just stay down could you?" Emma barked. "You had to ruin everything, but I guess that's what you're good at isn't it? Just making things worse for everyone around you."

"You got her killed," I growled.

"YOU DID!" Emma screamed. "You weren't even supposed to be there! I had it all set up nice and smooth, they would try and kill her, then she would be saved! She would realize how stupid she was to even _think_ you were stronger than me, and abandon you!" This was the second time I'd heard this, before from Sophia. So, what, the plan was to get Charlotte in this bad situation, then save her to have her indebted to them? That was fucking twisted.

"What fucking world do you live in!?" I exclaimed. "Do you even hear yourself? You sound like a fucking lunatic! You risked Charlotte's life for that? She had to die because she told her that?!"

"You killed her!" Emma growled, "you interfered and as a result, she died and you hurt Sophia. When will you learn to just roll over and just die?" That hurt so much. Maybe she was right. I felt the energy sap right out of me, and Emma smirked.

"By all means," Emma started. "After you. You can go inside, in a house you're not even welcome in."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"Oh, come on!" Emma laughed, "you still don't get it? Why do you think your dad started to ignore you? Put two and two together, Taylor. You killed your mom." Any possible retort I could have had stopped right there. Everything came to a screeching halt.

"Bullshit," I said. "You're a fucking liar Emma. That makes no sense."

"Oh yeah?" Emma tilted her head. "How about this: You never called your mom like you were supposed to that night you were spending with me. I heard your dad talking with my dad, he said she was trying to get ahold of you when the accident happened. That's why he stopped paying attention to you. I mean, I don't blame him, how could he live with you? You killed her."

I couldn't come up with a response so Emma continued. Tears fell out of my eyes, everything she said lined up, it all made sense. I had been so excited to be at Emma's that I'd forgotten entirely to call mom, she was worried about me, and went to find me. Then she died, on the phone, I'd done that, and my dad knew it too. I

"You're a fucking curse to everyone around you, so please, do everyone a favor and kill yourself." Emma said. No, she was right. Mom? Dad? Charlotte? I was a monster, I got them trapped and I did nothing but hurt them. I didn't want to hurt anyone anymore. I felt my bugs around my start to fall into drains to drown themselves, they flew into bug zappers. I found myself nodding. Why was I nodding?

_Taylor, don't listen to her, _Ugin roared. It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice and the sheer power of it knocked me out of my stupor. Then I noticed, it was only a slight hint in her eyes. A flicker of blue that blended in with her already blue eyes. Pieces started to fall in place. How Emma got just about everyone to do as she said, or believe as she said with a simply gesture, or words.

"She's a fucking master," I breathed in the prison realm.

_Not a master,_ Ugin corrected, _A mind mage. A weak one, very weak and untrained. She needs to say the right words to influence someone or something that would already influence them, social pressures, threats. She says things that would already affect a person and her magics push it further. _

I furrowed my eyebrows at her and her eyes widened.

"Stop using your powers on me," I said through gritted teeth. She took a step back and was met with the door. It was so weird; our roles had reversed suddenly. The swarm gathered around, and started glowing violet. We stood there, silent, she was panting as though she'd just made a long run. I stepped forward and she quickly backed up, getting out of my way. I walked up an opened the door, the bugs all started to go inside, and scout the inside for me. The whole place had been torn apart; everything was on the floor. If I didn't know any better, I would say that we'd been robbed by criminals. I got into the doorway and paused.

"Charlotte was right," I declared. She looked at me with a wild look in her eyes. "I am stronger than you." I closed the door.

"_Taylor?"_ I heard Emma call.

Everything was a mess, the I wondered if the PRT was even obliged to clean up their messes after a search like this, or if they hadn't had the time to do it. I heard her suddenly screaming outside.

"_Get back here, Taylor!"_ I heard Emma's shrill scream. _"You're not better than me! You don't deserve your powers! You didn't suffer like I did! You went through shit compared to me! You are a coward, a sniveling coward, you hear me!?"_

I looked over at the walls, all of the paintings and pictures had been ripped off the wall, the frames broken. I turned the table back over with some effort.

"_Your worlds so fucking small, you're beneath me!" _

I went through all of the broken frames, finding the pictures that weren't ruined and placed them on the table.

"_How dare you! How dare you have something that you don't deserve! I deserve that!" _

I started to take the broom and clean up all of the broken glass. I got a glance in at the living room. They'd even taken apart the television. Did they think I had some secret lair or something? I shuddered to think of what my room looked like.

"_Taylor?" _It was quieter now.

I flipped the trash can back over, then noticed there was no plastic bag. I searched around the sink area, the cabinet under the sink was open and everything taken out. I took out a plastic bag from thee box, opening it.

"…_Don't leave me Taylor." _

I put the bag lining into the trash.

"_How dare you have what I don't."_ It was a whisper now; I don't know how I heard it.

I took the pan and dumped the broken glass into the trash. Silence. Nothing else. I glanced out the window, Emma was gone, completely out of view. I went back over to the table with the pictures.

It was a picture of my mom, my dad, and me. It was from when I was seven.

_Taylor?_ Ugin asked. I ignored him, and continued to clean, putting things back to their place. _Taylor, please._

I took the Spirit-Gem and put it on the table before I finally started to cry.

It was pushed by magic, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. It was my fault it had happened; everything went wrong when mom died. She wouldn't have been on the road. I thought of my dad, he had left me on my own, did he blame me, for everything that happened? God, it was worse now. Look what I'd done to the house, I might not have done it myself but these were the consequences of my actions.

As soon as I'd finished crying, I wiped my tears and grabbed the Spirit-Gem again.

"I'm sorry," I said.

_You shouldn't have to be,_ said Ugin. _Do you want to talk about what just happened?_

"No," I said. "I don't think I can."

_She said those things to hurt you, Taylor. _Ugin said, _you survived it. You are stronger than her. _

I sighed, before walking into my room. It was the worst, there were literally holes in the wall. As I looked around, I noticed that my journals were gone. Not just the personal ones, but the research journals that I had written with Ugin's help.

"I'm sorry, Ugin," I said solemnly.

_Fret not, _Ugin said. _Notes and research can be redone, replicated. You? I'm glad you're still here._ I must've looked like a deer in headlights. Ugin saying that did brighten my mood.

I smiled.

"Thanks, Ugin," I said.

_Whatever happened between you and your father, it happened in the past, he's been here for you now, _Ugin said. I nodded. I walked downstairs now, going into my parent's room….dad's room.

I sighed at the mess, I knew it would be there but seeing it made it all the more daunting, as I started to clean the room, looking. Where did dad put my letter? He never let me see it. Why? What was in it?

What was in dad's letter that made him react that way?

I eventually I saw the letter, it was the same yellow envelope it had been in two years ago now. I walked over towards it and picked it up. It had been opened already, the note still inside it.

"It's not much."

I turned around and saw my dad, he was glancing at the letter.

"It's only eleven words." He said. My shoulders slumped down.

"Are you okay?" I asked, "they didn't hurt you, did they?" My dad shook his head. There was another awkward silence before I asked: "Why only eleven?" He seemed to be thinking, he swallowed.

"I think it's all she had the heart to tell you," he answered.

"What did your letter say?" I asked. The silence was deafening following that question. I shut my eyes tightly. We were both avoiding talking about the elephant in the room that had trampled over our house. Like, what were you doing with supervillains last night? Have you been doing this for a while? Why didn't you tell me you have superpowers? I was expecting it but it never came.

"I wish she was here right now," I said.

"I do too, little owl," he said. I almost flinched at the name I'd been given by my mom.

"_You're up quite late now aren't you, little owl?"_

"I don't have her right here," he said, "but I think I understand the letter better now. Those words."

I tilted my head at him.

"I talked with the PRT," he said, "for a long time. They told me about you…and…" He looked down. "I know why you didn't tell me; you were afraid, I wish I'd known. I would've made this decision sooner." My blood started to run cold. Ugin made a face, peering at Danny from the water's reflection.

"There wasn't much choice, given what you did, Taylor," Dad tried to reassure me, "they told me that they'd be able to help you…"

"You didn't…" My eyes wide, I took a step back.

"I gave my consent to them, I filled out the paperwork. I…" He swallowed. "I had to give them custody of you. They said they'd give you a probationary ward status—"

I tried to breath but I couldn't. This was that second form of attack Lisa had told me about. They were attacking me through my own father. This was so much worse, I expected to be scolded, and maybe he would hate me, but I didn't think he would turn me in. I had wanted his consolation so bad; I had wanted his help.

"It was either this or being branded a villain," my dad explained, "Taylor, they were talking about potentially putting you in the _Birdcage_." My hand dropped the letter. "Please, listen to me, they can help you where I can't. They told me the statistics, six months, Taylor, they said you'd be dead in six months!"

"You signed me away to them," I whispered. I thought of what Emma said. He had just given me away. He'd just…

He really did hate me.

"I'm sorry Taylor," He was crying now, he had tears in his face. "I didn't want to…"

"I understand," I said, and for a brief moment, he looked relieved until he saw my face. I don't know what kind of expression I must've worn but he looked haunted. "I know you blame me for mom." He went slack jawed.

"T-Taylor," He pleaded.

"I'm nothing but trouble for you and everyone around me," I laughed, or was I crying? "You didn't need to go through all of this effort to get rid of me."

"Taylor, what are you talking about?" Dad asked.

I started to walk away. I knew what I was going to do now. He moved to get in my way but I passed through him quickly.

"Taylor!" My dad cried out.

"It was a nice two weeks," I said with a smile. I wondered if I would ever see him again. I walked out of the house, I noticed the PRT van, it must've been the one that they had brought Dad in with. There were PRT troopers waiting for me, along with Armsmaster. I glared holes into his helmet.

"Skitter, stand down," Armsmaster said.

"Twice now you've attacked me out of costume," I said. I left out the fact that I didn't even have a costume.

"I'm here to escort a new ward back to the PRT headquarters," he answered.

"I'm not one of you," I declared, "and I never will be." I heard a caw, and noted with annoyance that there were ravens watching me from the power lines.

"Don't make a stupid decision, Skitter," Armsmaster said, "you're in enough trouble as it is. This is your way out."

"She killed her," I hissed.

"That's a discussion for when we arrive back at headquarters," Armsmaster answered.

"Do you have a personal life, Armsmaster?" I asked.

"There is nothing you can use against me for threats, Skitter, you're making your case worse," Armsmaster answered.

"If you want to take me," I told him, "it'll be in a body bag." The Halberd lowered itself to my chest.

"You don't want a kill order, Skitter," Armsmaster said.

I smiled. He froze.

_Taylor, stop._ Ugin said. The swarm burst out from the basement, green mana flowed through my powers and into them, they grew three times their size as they moved towards Armsmaster. He tapped the butt of his halberd against the ground and the swam all died. I froze at that; he had a counter measure specifically for me? After a single day? He leveled the Halberd to my neck now.

"Surrender," He commanded. I swallowed, I should've been scared, but I wasn't. Why wasn't I scared?

_Taylor, please, don't throw your life away, _Ugin said. _It's over. _

"Don't hurt her!" I heard my dad yell coming outside of the house.

"Skitter, you won't last," Armsmaster said, "you won't survive." The choices here for me were so unfair, I didn't want any of this. I'd just tired to save my friend, was there anything wrong with that?

…I thought of what Emma had said. Did I just ruin things by being there? I felt black mana gather in me again. I felt the swarm, even though it was dead.

A cockroach's leg twitched.

"You named me, you branded me," I said, my voice wavered, I knew I was crying. I could feel the swarm, even though it was dead, the black mana that had gathered to me was flowing into it. It was almost seamless to me. "You tore down everything I have, but I think I finally understand what I am, because of it."

Armsmaster didn't answer. I looked up.

"I'm a monster."

The bugs that had died burst to sudden life, a bug touched the halberd and I gathered both black and green mana to me. Black magic had the power to destroy, though it seemed to limit itself to life, mainly, but all man made things eventually faded, tarnished, were reclaimed by nature, I didn't know if there was a way to just use green mana to destroy man made objects, but I figured surging black and green mana into this single bug would give that green mana it's incentive needed. The halberd suddenly started to rust, I turned over to the weapons of the PRT agents and quickly stuck bugs on their weapons too. Seconds later, the halberd fell into pieces tiny wires and a ridiculous amount of machinery that seemed to have been miniaturized coiled out of the now broken open pole.

Armsmaster took a step back, he seemed shocked. I took a step forward. The ravens circled us.

Instead of attacking Armsmaster, I had my bugs grow once more, I activated my ponder spell and time began to flow at a lower rate. My bugs started to flow around me, covering me, I had them interlock their arms and legs to me. This was not the best of ways to learn that bugs stuck to you not because their hands were sticky but because they had tiny hairs that pierced through objects. I then had every single flying bug I had connect to the bugs on my shoulders, I made sure to spread my growth spell towards them, and found it was a lot easier than before. They grew far larger than the other undead bugs. I felt myself be lifted off the ground, I was twenty feet in the air already.

I looked down at my dad, who was frozen at the sight. I didn't even have the heart to tell him goodbye. He'd seen what I really was.

A curse to everyone around me.

Ugin was silent as he watched me, I could tell what he was thinking. Eventually his head lowered.

_Taylor, _Ugin started. _Taylor, I know what you're thinking..._

"Ugin, you mentioned that you had other siblings," I voiced a thought, anything to keep me distracted, "did you have a parent?" Ugin seemed surprised by the question. He gave a reptilian sigh.

_We had a progenitor, legends refer to him as the Ur-Dragon, the source of all dragonkind across the multiverse. _

"What was he like?" I asked. I wondered if gender pronouns even worked for such a being.

_I don't know, _Ugin said. _He left before our eggs had even been formed in the tempest._

"Oh," I said dumbly. I would like to say that maybe that explained why Ugin was just so aloof, but maybe that's how it was for dragons, no parental attachment. That didn't make any sense though, before Ugin's brother had done what he did, they were close, inseparable, Ugin had said. "The tempest? Dragons are born from a storm?" I asked. That was new and interesting, it made dragons seem far more elemental to me. Like a force of nature.

_We were, the Elder Dragons are, _Ugin said, _and our kind can make storms too, from which dragons can be born. Going down the generations, however, they are born as much reptilian creatures are._

"Are you a parent, Ugin?" I asked.

_Yes, _Ugin answered, _I am the progenitor of the dragons of Tarkir. _He waved a hand and suddenly we weren't in the Prison Realm, but now we were in a vast plain, mountains looming in on the horizon. I saw a giant storm cell swirl with glowing light. I saw flashes of thunder as dragons formed and unfurled their four feathered wings.

"What was it like, being a parent to them?" I asked. Did you love them? Did you raise them?

Ugin didn't answer.

I felt the energy sap from me. It was stupid, hoping that Ugin could fill in the same shoes as my father. It was asking something that wasn't his responsibility to begin with.

I focused back into Earth, as I landed at my destination. The bugs around me dispersed, the magic on them fading.

I raised my eyes and glanced at the cemetery. I put my hood up as I climbed the hills. Thunder echoed from far off over the Atlantic. I finally found what I was looking for.

_Annette Rose Hebert__  
__1969-2008__  
__She taught something precious to each of us_.

I just stood there, trying to find the right words to say.


	12. Mending 2-4

**Mending 2.4**

"I don't know what to say." I started with looking at the grave.

There was a deep silence. I wondered if Ugin understood any of this. Talking at graves.

"So much has happened, a lot of it bad." I swallowed. "I ran away from home. I think dad hates me. My best friend; my only friend is dead."

I knew not to expect answers from the grave, but I just needed to let it out.

"I wish you were here," I said, "you always seemed to know what to do, you never let anything get to you. I wish I could do that right now, but I can't."

Now came the hard part.

"Emma…she said something today, and what she said makes some sense," she said. "I have to wonder if all of this is my fault. You being dead, dad shutting down, Charlotte dying. I'm so scared, mom, I hurt everyone around me, but I don't want to be alone."

The grave just stared back at me impassively. I would love for a chance to talk with my mother again, but at the same time, could I face her? Could I face her as I was now? Did she blame me for her death, in her final moments?

"I don't know what to do, mom," I cried. "I want to do good but it's so hard now. All I've done is make things worse."

I sniffed before my swarm alerted me that there was someone else here. I turned around to see a man in a blue denim jacket, a denim hoodie, with faded blue…jeans?

He looked to be in his fifties, shaggy pepper hair, clean shaven. In his hand was a cup of coffee, I recognized the brand, it was expensive, as in fifteen dollars a cup expensive. The steam swayed out of the cup. I remembered that I just came in riding on a swarm of giant zombie bugs, I was bound to draw attention to myself. I probably interrupted this man's visit. At the same time, I was cautious, I didn't know if he would harm me or not. I didn't want to leave mom's grave, but it might be better to do so. I started to walk off.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude," the man said. I stopped.

"No, I'm sorry for causing such a ruckus," I said, surprised to hear his apology, turning to him.

"It's a cemetery, emotions are bound to get high here," he said. "There's a lot left unsaid, unresolved, so it's best to try and find closure, and sometimes that isn't done quietly." I raised an eyebrow; he didn't seem bothered that I had just come in on a plague of insects. That only made me more suspicious of him.

"I didn't interrupt you, did I?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No, I have a friend who's buried here," he said, turning to look at the whole cemetery, "or at least I was told she was buried here. Problem is, I don't exactly know where." I blinked at that.

"You can't find her grave?" I asked. "Why is hard to find?"

"My friend had a bit of a shady past," he said, "she probably changed her name, if I saw her, I could pick her out of a crowd, way harder to do when the only frame of reference you have are graves, so every time I come here, I find any grave that nobody's standing in front of and talk." I pursed my lips at that. That seemed incredibly odd. I noticed Ugin was watching now intently.

"Trouble?" I asked inside the Prison Realm. He shook his head.

_No_, Ugin said. I turned my attention back to the denim clad man.

"What was your friend like?" I asked. He turned to look at me. "If you don't mind me asking."

"I don't mind at all," he said. He paused, thinking. "She was…driven, I guess. I never knew what to think of her. First time I met her I thought I loved her, but that relationship fell apart after she used me for something. She had fallen in with a bad crowd when she was younger and she was trying to move away from that, but the only way she knew how was to cause _more_ trouble. I could never tell if she actually liked me and my friends, or if she was just using us."

"She doesn't sound like a good friend," I noted. He laughed a bit at that, before he gave his hot coffee a _chug_.

"You'd think, right?" he snorted. "But in the end, when it was all said and done, she did the right thing. The last time I saw her, she had done good, when it was not in her best interest. She left after that, and I never saw her again." He swallowed. "There's a lot left unsaid, between her and us, and I just come here to voice it."

Ugin tilted his head, in a weird way, he seemed relieved.

I hesitated for a moment. This place was important to me, but watching this guy, who must've over the years just wandered from grave to grave wondering where his friend was buried. I tried to imagine what that was like, maybe that'll be the case with Charlotte, the PRT will never publicize it. An unmarked grave in some far-off cemetery.

"You," I stopped, he glanced at me, "you can stand by my mom's gave with me. I know she's not your friend, but I don't think she'd mind." Maybe I was just that lonely, and this was the first interaction today where I didn't have to worry about capes or planeswalkers. He looked like a deer caught in headlights for a breath's moment before he smiled and nodded.

We stood there in silence. It wasn't an awkward one, but it was a silence that was almost meditative.

"I heard you talking back there," the man was the first to break the silence. "I know you probably think I don't know what you're going through but do you mind if I give a bit of advice?"

I swallowed and nodded.

"I spent so many years of my life alone," he said, "I thought I was too dangerous to be around people. I pushed so many chances at happiness away, all because I either thought I didn't deserve it or that I would hurt people around me. I was miserable, and I made the people who got caught up in my whirlwind miserable by proxy."

"Things got better, right?" I asked. He sighed.

"Yeah," he said. "I found myself working with a group of people, and it took me a long time to finally open up to them, but when I did…" He smiled. "I was so afraid of getting burned, but I eventually took that risk, and I realized that it was worth it."

I could tell him that my only option right now was a band of super powered thieves. Or that I had powers-though I guess that much was obvious with how I came here.

"I don't need anyone," I said, aloud, "I can't be with people."

"Then why are you talking with me right now?" The man asked. I thought about the question.

I knew I was not under a spell, but it was as though the words were taken from my mouth, soundless. I held my breath trying to find an explanation that would be satisfying.

"I…" Breath came out of me in a long sigh. "I don't want to be alone." The man nodded.

"I'm guessing you ran away because of what I saw back there?" he asked.

"It's complicated," I said.

"It's _always_ complicated. These sorts of things there's never an easy answer," he said. "Does your father hate you because of that?" My shoulders sagged.

"No," I said, "It's probably the other thing. He tried to send me away to these people that are trying to hurt me. He…" I rubbed my eyes.

"Do you love your father?" the man asked. I thought for a moment, then decided.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be so upset that he hates me," I answered. "So yes, I love him."

"My mother sent me off when I was a child," he said, "she was worried about me, and tried to find me help. I got caught up in a whirlwind of trouble and when I finally decided to see her again, she'd passed away."

"Are you a stranger or something?" I asked, "because this seems a bit too convenient, too coincidental." The man seemed to give it some thought.

"Well," he said, "I guess I am a stranger. After all, we don't know each other." He gave a coy smile and that only mad me narrow my eyes more. "I'm Jace." He extended out a hand.

_It's safe, _Ugin told me, was that humor in his voice?

I shook his hand cautiously.

"Taylor," I said, cautiously. He smiled.

"It's good to meet you Taylor," he said. He stared back at my mother's grave. "I don't know if what I said has any impact. You're still young and a lot of advice is bound to go over your head, hell, I was in my _twenties_ and it still went over my head," I was annoyed that he thought I was too pigheaded to understand what he said, but that only proved his point? "But I think you're a good kid, Taylor. I think your dad was trying to help you, he doesn't understand all of this, and thought that maybe you needed someone who understood your powers better. I'm not saying he was in the right to do what he did, but he thought he was meeting you halfway."

"Whatever the case," I said, "I can't go back home now."

"You always can," Jace said, "don't ever forget that. Don't wait too long, or it won't be home anymore."

That thought scared me, coming back home and feeling like a stranger, like I didn't belong.

"He probably thinks I'm a monster," I said. I didn't tell him that I thought I was a monster myself.

"You'll never know until you try," Jace said. The rain started to fall. "Give it some thought, you're a bit shell shocked right now, and you're not thinking clearly." I noticed a familiar van rolling up onto the side of the road. Lisa came out of the driver's side door and walked up the hill. "We'll meet again."

I turned around to ask him what he meant but I found that he wasn't there.

"He was a stranger," I muttered.

_Not a Stranger, _Ugin chuckled, _just a fool tempered with experience._ _Which makes him the wisest of men._

"You knew him?" I asked, I looked around for him again.

_I did, _Ugin said. The implication hitting me.

"Oh."

Lisa reached the top, and stood some ten feet from me.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"You flew around on a plague of giant zombie bugs, it's hard not to notice you," Lisa said. "I'm guessing it went bad."

"You said it would be safe to go home," my voice was hollow.

"I know," She said, in almost a whisper, "I was wrong. I'm so sorry. I thought the worst that would happen was they'd ask you questions and try and get a rile out of you and that'd be it. I was so wrong." It was almost like she choked on the word 'wrong'. "Come on, let's get you home."

"Home?" I asked, tilting my head.

"Back to base," she corrected herself. I didn't move. "Taylor…"

"You don't want me there," I said. "I'll cause more trouble for you."

"We live our lives taking a gamble every day, hon," Lisa said. "It comes with the occupation."

"Yeah, but I'm a bad luck charm," I said. She tilted her head, then shook it.

"I don't think you are," she said. "I think you look at things around you and you take responsibility for actions that you had nothing to do with."

"Charlotte would still be alive if it weren't for me," I said. She might've bought into whatever insane spiel Emma and Sophia were trying to sell her on, but she would've been alive.

"You don't know that," Lisa frowned, "and Shadow Stalker was taking a gamble as it was. You weren't the one who killed her, who was?" I paused.

"Shadow Stalker," I admitted.

"Yeah, she did. You were trying to save her," Lisa moved closer, "You don't need to blame yourself for everything that goes wrong." She held up her hand, offering it to me.

I took a step back; she didn't falter at all. She swallowed. I glanced down.

_Alright Jace, let's try it your way_, I thought. I walked forward before taking her hand. She broke out into a smile.

We walked down to the van, I got in the passenger's side while Lisa started the van. As we drove away, I looked out the window, I saw Jace standing at my mother's grave still. I guess he was going to talk with his friend.

"You must be uncomfortable," Lisa sighed, "those clothes have been soaked twice over now. We're getting Marcone's for dinner, we'll stop at the clothes store while we're out."

"I don't have any money," I told her. She shrugged.

"I can afford this," Lisa said. "You don't have any more clothes now that you've had to run away."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Hm?" She stopped at a red light and looked at me quizzically.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked. "You say it's recruitment but is it still practical to recruit me?" Lisa seemed to think for a moment.

"Thinking about what Grue said?" she asked. I nodded. "He was spooked. We all were, _especially_ the PRT. He's usually like this for these kinds of decisions. He always comes around though. Barring the offshoot example…" I flinched at that. "You're just his kind of style, quick, efficient, leave no room for actual fighting. That whole thing you did where you used Armsmaster's own containment foam against him? I think that was pretty smart, he does too. You neutralized him without hurting him. That's what he actually likes to see."

"He was there again," I said. "Armsmaster."

"Mm," grunted Tattletale. "How did that go?"

"Blew up his Halberd and flew off," I said.

"First off: Holy crap. Second off: See? I think you're pretty practical, Taylor," Lisa said. "Beyond that, would you believe me if I told you I want to be your friend?"

I didn't answer. I didn't have the best luck with friends. I didn't exactly have the best personality for them, and I'd done terribly with the first two. Lisa in a way reminded me of Emma, pretty and with an attitude that told you she knew how to direct a clique.

The car stopped in a strip mall. We had parked next to a department shop a few stores down from Marcone's Pizza. They were a local chain, there used to be one closer to where I lived but they shut down when I was six. We both got out of the car.

"They haven't put my picture out on the news, have they?" I asked in a whisper.

Lisa went through her phone quickly, before shaking her head.

"No," she said, "we're safe. If the PRT did that, it would be openly admitting to what they did, and they don't want that." We left it at that as we entered.

"Pick out whatever you want," Lisa said. I immediately b-lined it towards the hoodies and sweaters. I looked for neutral colors, nothing that popped out and drew attention to me. Lisa looked like she wanted to say something but she didn't.

"What are your thoughts, Ugin?" I asked. Ugin was looking down at the pools, I at first thought that he was watching what was going on back in Earth, but then I noticed that he was watching events from before. He was going through images quickly. I noticed, morbidly, one of them, was when I'd attacked Shadow Stalker. That image constantly came back over and over again. "Ugin?"

_Taylor, you said you wanted to talk with your mother? _Ugin asked. My heart nearly stopped. I beckoned him to continue. _When I was on Tarkir, I taught a clan of people, the Abzan how to speak with their ancestors through family trees. I don't know if we can emulate this without a family tree, Taylor, but when you're ready, I'll teach you something. _

"For," I shook my head, "for a brief moment. I considered trying to bring her back from the dead."

_I wouldn't recommend it, _Ugin said, _talking with spirits can be fine, but trying to bring back a fully sentient being can absolutely destroy their psyche. There are many different afterlifes, and to pull someone from one of them could be traumatic. _

"Thank you, Ugin," I said. "I…really appreciate the sentiment."

_I think you should listen to their advice. Jace and Lisa's. _

I glanced from above some of the sweaters at Lisa who seemed to be glancing at clothes patiently.

"Can we trust her?" I asked Ugin.

_She hasn't tried to harm us yet, _Ugin noted. _I think she may be genuine, in wanting to be your friend. _I had always been too terrified to lie to Ugin about things, and I'd always figured he had some sort of magical lie detector built into his draconic brain, whether it was magical or through years of experience. I didn't know if it was true, but when it wasn't concerning my high school drama, he seemed to be right about most things. _I also think I've found something of interest._

"What?" I asked. Ugin stopped and pulled up an image of Lisa.

_The Spirit-Gem is under a cloaking spell that blocks scrying, or rather, the Prison Realm is, but the Spirit-Gem, being connected to it also benefits from this obscuring. If these powers were magic, she should not have been able to infer about it using her powers. _

"It's not magic then, period," I nodded, "that makes sense, it works very differently."

_No, _Ugin said, _but at the same time, your powers, they flow with your magic, they work in tandem, you can cast through your powers, in fact, your powers seem to _incentivize_ doing this. Even though she was able to infer about the Spirit-Gem, notice that she gleamed less from it than she had other things._

"So, are you saying it's similar to magic? Or that these powers are _simulating_ magic?"

_If so where's the source of energy, is it mana? If so, why haven't we felt it?_ Ugin asked. That had been the question that had permeated my old notes that the PRT had taken. Where was the source of the energy for these powers? Magic made sense. No, really it did. It was directly drawn from energies in a plane of existence, through landmarks that leave psychic impressions. Powers didn't draw mana from the earth as far as I could tell, so where was it coming from?

My brain could process two blocks worth of bugs, and it didn't at all hamper my ability to do anything. That was almost like a supercomputer's worth of information processing, I honestly should have been dead, my brain exploded from an information overflow.

But here I was, completely aware of every bug in this department store.

I thought of those supercomputers the size of large bookcases, dozens of them all hooked up and processing information. I thought about how much electricity it took to power them, to keep them running.

I picked out the clothes and Lisa looked at them.

"They'll work for now," Lisa sighed, "Let's get back."

With that we paid for the clothes and went into Marcone's.

"Pick up for 'Lisa'," she said. The cashier nodded before bringing a stack of pizzas. There had to be six boxes of pizza.

"Geez," I said. "What were you going to do if I decided I wasn't going to come along."

"I knew you would," Lisa smirked.

"I could've easily decided to go feral and live in the woods with squirrels," I retorted. She laughed.

"And become some deranged hermit?" She asked. "I mean, they'd never find you that's true. If that were the case, we would've stopped a sporting goods store instead." I blinked at that.

"You still would have helped me if I'd decided I wasn't coming with you?" I asked.

"It's the least I can do," Lisa said with a shrug, "you weren't planning on entering the cape scene for quite a while, and so far, it hasn't gone well for you." I didn't say anything for the rest of the ride home.

Maybe just this once, I could open up.


	13. Interlude 2-a

**Interlude 2.a**

**2000**

"You're actually leaving," Armsmaster stated with surprise. There were boxes all about Phantom's office.

"I am," Phantom said, putting a few books into a box.

"Are you going to tell us why?" he asked. Phantom hesitated for a brief moment.

"There's been some differences between me and the Triumvirate members," she finally said. It felt odd, hearing her refer to them like that, just two months ago, it had been the Pentumvirate, and now, not even a month after they lost a number, another member was _leaving_. She'd even disassociated herself from them, and that almost broke Armsmaster's heart. Five had become three. "It's some stuff I'm not really at liberty to talk about."

"You're not in trouble, are you?" Armsmaster asked. Phantom shook her head.

"No, just a change in how leadership will be running from now on, the Protectorate will decide who runs the Brockton Bay team." Phantom said. She seemed to be staring at a piece of what looked to be plate armor that had always been on her desk. She swallowed before putting it into the box. "Who knows, Arms, you might be up for that position."

That gave Armsmaster a bit of a start, he straightened himself a bit more and Phantom laughed.

"Down, boy," she said. Armsmaster pursed his lips, Phantom had always teased the other superheroes, but not in any mean way. More in an annoying older sister way, or so he'd been told. He'd grown up a single child, so he didn't know what it was like to have a sibling.

"You'll try and stay in contact with us, right?" Armsmaster asked.

"It's probably best if I didn't," Phantom said with a sigh. Armsmaster glanced down.

"If you ever need anything," Armsmaster stated, "be sure to call us." Phantom paused before she finally nodded.

"I'll keep that in mind," Phantom said, "I just hope it never comes to that."

"What are you going to do now?" asked Armsmaster.

"Fly under the radar, completely," said Phantom.

"Why?" Armsmaster asked. "Even as an independent-"

"It would do more harm to the Protectorate," said Phantom, "imagine, a founding member, quitting the Protectorate but still continuing her superhero work without government supervision. We don't want to send the wrong message."

"The Endbringers…" Armsmaster faded off. She'd done a lot for the world over already, more than Armsmaster. Was it fair to be asking this of her?

Phantom sighed. She started closing the boxes and taping them shut.

"My life's gotten complicated since I started the whole superhero thing, Collin," Phantom said. "I have to think about other things too." Armsmaster's mood took a turn down even further. Phantom picked up one of the boxes. Armsmaster in turn picked up another. She looked as though she wanted to say something.

* * *

**2011**

"Are you sure that it wasn't intentional?" Piggot asked again. Armsmaster glanced around.

"Yes," Armsmaster said. "If she had meant to do what she did to Shadow Stalker, I don't think I would be alive. Every time I fought her, she disabled me and fled. She had a lot of opportunities to kill me or to…turn me into what Shadow Stalker became."

There was a tense silence at the mention of Shadow Stalker, nobody was allowed to talk about what happened, under direct orders from Chief Director Costa Brown.

"_If this gets out. It could completely shatter the years of work that went into building trust with the Public. It will change the way people look at Parahumans. Our jobs will be on the line, and with the Endbringers, we cannot afford to have that. Too many lives are at risk." _

For now, an excuse would be made for Velocity, that he'd retired early. They would tell the families of the dead PRT Troopers that they had died on the line of duty against a now suppressed cape. Shadow Stalker had been reclassified as Varanus now, Piggot thought it fitting, based on what she'd seen of the monster. The only loose end was Panacea, who had been there when the Varanus incident had happened. They had already pressured her into keeping quiet with an NDA, but they were wary of what she might tell the New Wave. What had once been Shadow Stalker, or Varanus now, was to be held underneath PRT Headquarters for now, sedated at all times.

Lest they wake the beast.

Piggot glanced over at the wall next to the door, where electrical wires and been ripped out of the walling and strewn about. It had been a saving grace that Varanus had inherited at least some of Shadow Stalker's innate weakness to lightning. Her changer form had been too big and wherever she went she carried those electrical wires with her. She'd almost gotten into Piggot's office. That haunting roar that sounded just human enough to give her chills.

It reminded her of Ellisburg.

"Are you sure it wasn't because you were a Tinker. She might've mastered Shadow Stalker knowing that she would mutate her powers like that," Piggot said.

It had been the reason Armsmaster had been sent out as back up against Skitter, if he had been compromised the way Shadow Stalker had become, it allowed more time to come up with a response. Though even that was a gamble, there was no telling if Skitter could give powers. Shadow Stalker certainly hadn't been a changer or a brute beforehand.

"Maybe," Armsmaster admitted, "but I don't think she's a killer. I think that she reacted badly to seeing her friend get killed."

"What we need is to find Emma Barnes, has anyone seen her since she was at the Hebert house?" asked Piggot.

"No," said Dauntless. "The footage we have shows her standing outside of the household, screaming, then she…disappears."

"Please tell me how we missed the fact that Shadow Stalker was friends with a potential Stranger?" groaned Piggot, rubbing her temples. What the hell was going on right now? They'd tested Emma Barnes for a Corona Pollentia and it had come up negative. She didn't have one! How the hell did she do that?

Unfortunately, the missing gaps had started to fill in too slowly. They had discovered the journals in Taylor Hebert's room. A very detailed account of a bullying campaign on her by Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes that contradicted Emma's statement to the PRT.

With dread, it had slowly started to dawn on everyone that the murder of Charlotte Miller might have been intentional on the part of Shadow Stalker. Skitter had reacted badly, used a power on her which had led to the catastrophe of the Varanus Incident.

The question still remained. Had Taylor Hebert orchestrated the Varanus Incident?

It didn't matter now, what did matter, was that they put a lid on this. For that, they needed Taylor Hebert, Skitter.

"Director," Armsmaster spoke up. Piggot glanced up.

"You've pissed me off enough already, Armsmaster," said Piggot, "what is it you want?" Armsmaster stiffened, his grip tightening. He was originally supposed to only be at the Hebert household for back up in case Taylor had gotten violent when they tried to acquire her for questioning.

Somehow, she caught wind of them waiting inside and fled before they'd even had a chance. Armsmaster's first pursuit of her had not been planned.

The unwritten rules didn't exactly protect Taylor Hebert. For one, she had been outside of costume when the incident had occurred, and she didn't _have_ a costumed persona. Some cape couldn't just walk up in jeans and a jacket, commit a crime and then just walk away unchallenged.

Tattletale and Grue on the other hand? They were most definitely protected. If those two went off talking about how they were attacked out of costume, it would mean open season on the Protectorate's heroes.

So Piggot had punished Armsmaster accordingly, two days without his team after today, his power armor and gadgets confiscated.

"I think we should wait for now, wait until she resurfaces, _in costume,"_ Armsmaster emphasized the last part.

"What?" Piggot laughed. "Have you lost your mind, Armsmaster? I'm trying to keep my city from turning into fucking Halloween Town here and you think we should let her go?!"

"She's not Nilbog," Armsmaster said between his teeth. The room was silent for a moment. "She's not Nilbog. My impression of her? Reading over her journals, her notes? She's just a scared girl who's been hurt so much that she thinks there's something wrong with her."

Piggot stopped herself. She would've retorted that there was something wrong with Skitter, but she knew when to keep her hatred of parahumans in check.

"Whatever she is," Armsmaster said, "we made her into that. I want you to keep that in mind." With that, Armsmaster left the office. Dauntless swallowed.

"What are we going to do about Danny Hebert?" asked Dauntless.

"What about him?" Piggot asked, raising an eyebrow. "We leave him alone. It's clear from the interrogation that he didn't know anything. Nothing about his daughter's powers, her research or this _Ugin_ mentioned in the notes."

They had searched the entire parahumans database, thinking maybe it was some cape that had been manipulating the girl, but nothing had come up. The only reference they could find was a mythological one, very obscure too.

Dauntless sighed.

"I mean, I promised him that his daughter would be safe in the wards," Dauntless said. "I didn't intend for it to turn out the way it did."

Piggot nodded. She knew that Shawn had a child of his own, and empathized with Danny Hebert's plight. Piggot might've twisted Dauntless's intentions in the meeting, getting full custody of Skitter, but from what she'd read in the journals, Danny until recently hadn't been the most attentive of fathers, and there were grounds for her to go into child protective services if Piggot wanted to twist things around far enough.

She sighed loudly.

"He doesn't know enough to start a stink," said Piggot, "and that's good enough. You can tell him we're doing what we can for his daughter, but to keep in mind that she'd made her bed." The phone rang, Piggot walked over to her desk and answered it.

"Speak," Piggot commanded.

"_Ma'am, there's a firefight in downtown, between Empire 88 and Coil's men. We think there's a member of the Infinite Consortium among the mercenaries them." _ Piggot stiffened.

"Heard it," Dauntless said and started for the door.

"Dauntless, a moment," Piggot beckoned.

"Now's not the time," Dauntless said in exasperation.

"You're in charge," Piggot said. "Consider these two days your trial." Dauntless looked down before nodding and rushing off.

* * *

"_How dare you have what I don't."_

In that instant, Emma found herself plunged into an abyss of colors, she flew across it, feeling the colors in her hands, she found herself moving towards a doorway, it looked almost like the entryways at Winslow High, into the classrooms. She got closer and closer and…

Emma opened her eyes and gasped for breath. She was cold and wet, rain fell almost horizontally onto her face, the rough rocky surface she clung onto was a large half arch that curved into the point of a talon. It was massive, it reached hundreds of feet in the air, on the other end, obscured by rain and fast-moving clouds was another similar half arch, ending in sharp ended points. They were like the claws of birds.

She saw bursts of lightning on the horizon. A massive wave crashed onto her, and she was pulled out into the torrent of the sea, spinning endlessly in the water, until she reached the surface, between the two sharp arches.

She fought against the current as much as she could but suddenly, she found herself rising out of the water. She glanced down and the waves were getting smaller and smaller. Her eyes widened. She smiled with glee. Her hands stretched outwards.

She'd done it! She'd finally been rewarded. For all that she'd sacrificed in her quest to become strong, she had endured one final test! She had done it! She found herself laughing with joy.

She was strong at long last!


	14. Interlude (Jiang)

**Interlude 2.j (Jiang Yanggu)**

"Let's run another circle around the citadel," Jiang Yanggu offered to Mowu. Mowu's tail wagged so fast, Yanggu thought he might take off into the sky. They started to run along the pathway. Beautiful plants decorated either side of the pathway. Yanggu could've given all of the credit for the beautiful garden to Nissa, one of the five leaders, but he knew that there were a number of other planeswalkers that had that intimate connection to plantlife as well. Regardless, it helped liven Naktamun.

The restoration of Amonkhet was a long and arduous process, but the Gatewatch had the full cooperation of Hazoret and the survivors, and currently, the city of Naktamun housed one of two headquarters for the Gatewatch. The other was on Zendikar.

As they ran, Yanggu noticed a humanoid lion fast approaching from behind. He was large, eight feet tall, covered in an almost silver white fur, with striking blue eyes. His beard was long, but far from unkempt. Yanggu had heard from one of the younger planeswalkers that it made him look like a wise king to them. His white cape billowed in the wind as he seemed to sprint to catch up, Yanggu noticed he did not have his axe on him.

"Good morning Ajani," Yanggu offered to the leonin, there was only a slight hesitation in his pace as he caught up, the only clue that Ajani's age was starting to get to him.

"A good morning to you too, Yanggu, Mowu," Ajani said, for a brief moment looking to nod at the dog, who in turn gave a silly smile. Ajani regularly fed Mowu treats whenever he thought Yanggu wasn't looking, he didn't mind the gesture. "I hope you don't mind if I join you today."

"Not at all," Yanggu smiled. The Gatewatch had swollen in ranks from it's old days, partially because the Gatewatch became a security net for Planeswalkers, being a part of the Gatewatch meant you didn't have to face trouble alone, and you had people to fall back on. They especially needed it now, the multiverse was getting scarier by the day. Ajani had taken it upon himself to look after the younger planeswalkers, and that had included Yanggu himself when he was a boy. To him, Ajani was his teacher, his mentor, his friend. He trusted the leonin, and Ajani had never once betrayed that trust.

They continued their jog, at one point, they had a better look down onto the city through a few palm trees. Naktamun had been rebuilt, more glorious than ever, the haunting inward horns dispelled, every piece that had that symbol expunged and changed. Nissa had been spending years to try and fix the damage to the leylines, there was progress but they had a long way to go. A number of other planeswalkers worked with her, and a few ideas were being bounced back and forth.

The other issue to be dealt with was the Wandering Curse. According what Hazoret remembered, it predated Nicol Bolas's arrival.

"I read your most recent travelogue," Ajani spoke up, continuing to pace with him. "You saved that group of Thoctar on Alara from going extinct. I'm grateful, it would've been sad to see a remnant of Naya leave like that."

"You were from there, right?" Yanggu asked. "Naya, before it became part of Alara again?" Ajani nodded. Yet another plane that had been ravaged by the machinations of Nicol Bolas, it seemed as though the consequences of the elder dragon's actions reached to every plane across the multiverse. "There was an invasive species, dragons, that had been forced out of Jund by Esperites mining their home for caramot, so they fled to the jungles. I went and stopped their operation…only to find that they had been working for the Infinite Consortium."

"Tezzeret," Ajani voiced under his breath, "were there any of their number there?" Yanggu shook his head.

"No, but I know Tezzeret covets caramot because it's used to make etherium," Yanggu said. "So, I doubt he'll be happy to know that his operation's been torn down. I don't think I even put a permanent halt to their operations, he might just start again."

"I'll be sure to pass on news to Sarkhan," Ajani said, "I doubt he would be happy to hear about what Tezzeret's been doing to the dragons." That made Yanggu feel a bit better. Sarkhan was a lot stronger than him, if Tezzeret tried to fight Sarkhan, Yanggu thought that the dragon shaman would come out on top. "The Infinite Consortium is actually the second reason I'm here." Yanggu blinked.

"Really? Do you have a lead on him?" Yanggu asked. He didn't know how much well he'd do up against Tezzeret, Ral Zarek had tried to fight Tezzeret and nobody had heard from him in years now.

"We've known that the Infinite Consortium has had an operation on Earth for a while, but we've been stopped by Cauldron," Ajani said.

"Those are the people Liliana Vess was working with?" Yanggu asked for clarification. Ajani nodded.

"And the people she left too," Ajani said, rather quickly, as if coming to her defense. Yanggu frowned. He knew that to the founding members of the Gatewatch, Liliana was close to them, and they spoke fondly of her. He understood also that she hadn't had a choice when she led Bolas' army into Ravnica, but he still associated her with that day when he was a teenager, trapped, with metallic undead coming for his life. All of the death, all of the carnage around him, the thousands of lives lost. Nicol Bolas might've ordered the slaughter, but Liliana Vess had been the one to execute those orders. She did the right thing in the end, but he still couldn't shake the fact that she had killed so many people.

_If Liliana Vess didn't like what these people were doing,_ thought Yanggu, _they must be really evil._

"We don't have the right or the means to intervene against Cauldron and the Infinite Consortium," said Ajani, solemnly. "Not with a lot of our numbers on the Phyrexian Front."

Yanggu flinched at the name. It was what they called the station from which the Gatewatch launched guerilla warfare against the tide of New Phyrexia. It's sole intent and purpose was to hinder and slow down the Phyrexians, keep them contained on New Phyrexia at all times by any means necessary.

"And with the way things turned out on Ravnica," Ajani continued, "an attack on Earth's government, and Cauldron would make things worse for any planeswalkers currently living there."

The last wide scale battle involving Planeswalkers other than the Phyrexian Front had been the War of the Spark on Ravnica. Since then, things have gotten bad for planeswalkers there. The planeswalkers were blamed for the attack on Ravnica and the invasion, seen as interlopers and outsiders, it had escalated until what had been used formerly as the Gatewatch headquarters had been burned down in a riot. After that they relocated to Amonkhet, helping the people rebuild their ways of life and help rediscover their lost culture that Bolas had twisted.

Yanggu had helped with that innumerable times, exploring buried ruins in the outlands with Samut.

"So, what is it you wanted with me? Concerning the Infinite Consortium?" asked Yanggu. Ajani sighed as they slowed down again to get another view of the city below. Hazoret, the last of the gods of Amonkhet, fifty feet tall with her golden Jackal head was amongst the people. She was knelt down talking with someone. Yanggu's eyes weren't good enough but if he had to guess, it might've been Samut.

"Something happened, Jace informed me that Tezzeret's taking a more direct approach on Earth now. In a city called Brockton Bay, he's allied himself with one of the local gangs. We can't move against him, but we can keep an eye on him," Ajani said.

"You're sending me to Earth?" asked Yanggu. He didn't exactly like the idea. He thought himself more at home adventuring into the unknown, or observing things in the open wild. Not on a place like Earth.

"Yes," Ajani nodded. "I'll give you the location of Boston, where we have a contact. He'll be giving you an identification card, money, the key to an apartment, the things you'll need to survive in Earth's society." Yanggu nodded, at one point they'd had a planeswalker from Earth, however, he had died on the Phyrexian Front. His contacts and the tiny network however, had survived.

"These sorts of operations are better for Jace, or Kaya." Yanggu stated, kneeling down to scratch Mowu's ear. The dog leaned in, stomping his left rear leg repeatedly onto the adobe pathway.

"Jace, unfortunately, is known there," Ajani said. "They have someone amongst their number, Cauldron. A woman in a suit, she's incredibly dangerous. Jace and Kaya have encountered her before… both meetings ended…poorly."

"How dangerous?" asked Yanggu.

"If you see her, run," Ajani said gravely. "This mission is important, but don't endanger your life needlessly." Yanggu waited for an explanation. "We think her powers are similar to Aminatou. She can't use magic, but she doesn't need it to destroy you."

Yanggu coldly nodded. When you were compared to Aminatou the Fateshifter, you were scary.

"Is there anything else?" Yanggu asked.

"Yes," Ajani said, "the Protectorate, that is the government organization for Parahumans, we believe they're connected to Cauldron too. So avoid them if you can." Yanggu nodded. Ajani paused and sighed. "There's one other thing…"

"Yes?" Yanggu asked.

"There is a girl, in Brockton Bay, we don't know where she is. Jace saw her a few months ago…" Ajani started. "Keep an eye on her. Help her, if you can."

"Is she a planeswalker?" asked Yanggu.

"I don't know," Ajani exhaled, "approaching her would not do well…" Ajani looked upset about it, which made sense. He tried his best to help younger planeswalkers. A lot of their kind ignited in moments of severe trauma, and Ajani, empathic as he was, was perfect for trying to mend them and build them up into stronger people. Many of the newer generation of planeswalkers proudly called Ajani their teacher.

"Why not?" Yanggu inquired. "If she's a planeswalker, then she could benefit from the Gatewatch, we could watch over her, help hone her powers and…"

Ajani answered. Yanggu stopped.

"Oh," Yanggu breathed.

"Oh," repeated Ajani. "We think that she may fall into Tezzeret's hands soon, if she hasn't already."

"Sending Kaya would not do well because…"

Ajani nodded. Yanggu sighed.

"I'll try my best," Yanggu told him. Ajani seemed to smile a bit.

They enjoyed the rest of their walk, eventually ending up back in the citadel. Yanggu went to his room, papers strewn about the place, a small bed set up for his partner. Most of his travelogues were actually in the library, as he documented what about the local fauna and flora. He picked up his chaotic mess, putting the papers onto his desk before glancing over at Mowu.

"This is going to be different from our usual adventures," Yanggu said.

Mowu wined in response. Yanggu laughed.

"Don't worry," the laugh turned into a chuckle. "I don't think we'll be in too much danger. It'll be like walking around in Ravnica."

Yanggu realized as soon as he said it, that those were not in fact encouraging words. Mowu made doubly sure he knew it by stuffing his face into a pillow.

Yanggu looked up at the ceiling for a long while. He was close to turning forty-three soon, but he was still in good shape. He kept his hair a bit shorter now than he did as a kid. He wasn't much younger than some of the older Gatewatch members but he still felt almost an entire generation younger than them. Like they had come from a completely different world of experience.

There was a knock on his door. He reared his head up, Mowu's ears perked up. Yanggu raised his legs and leaped out of the bed onto his feet. There was another knock, before Yanggu opened the door again.

The woman behind the door had dark skin, she was dressed in light padded armor obscured by the bundles of a cloak. Her skin was dark, and her hair was starting to turn from black to slightly grey.

"Kaya," answered Yanggu.

"Can I come in, Yanggu?" asked Kaya. Yanggu nodded, moving out of the way to let Kaya in. She absentmindedly walked towards his desk, glancing at a sheet of paper.

"Muraganda?" asked Kaya.

"I didn't stay there long enough to write a whole travelogue," Yanggu answered. "That was when I was younger too, I've been thinking I should find time to go back there some day."

"I haven't been there, period," Kaya said, "I tend to stay in more civilized planes." She then glanced back at Yanggu.

"What do you need?" Yanggu asked. This was the second time he'd been approached by one of the Gatewatch's leaders.

"Yanggu, if I'm going to be perfectly honest," Kaya started, "I don't think you're well suited for this mission. You're a traveler, and we're asking you to stay in a place for a long time."

"We don't really have many people to spare right now," Yanggu said. "I can handle myself. I have Mowu to back me up."

"I know," Kaya said, "if you don't want to go on this journey, tell me, and I'll go instead." Yanggu raised an eyebrow.

"But Cauldron knows who you are," Yanggu protested. "Isn't this whole mission supposed to be about trying to figure out what Tezzeret is up to?" Kaya nodded. Yanggu's shoulders slumped as he suddenly realized what was happening. "You want to go."

"There are some things I need to do," Kaya said, "some wrongs I need to make _right."_

"I wasn't your fault," Yanggu said, "you were tricked. Cauldron tricked you."

"That doesn't absolve me, Yanggu," Kaya's voice tensed. She was unconsciously fingering a small gold disk collar of her cloak. Yanggu glanced at the disk as well. She'd been back to Ravnica recently, it seemed.

"I'll try and make things right," Yanggu declared, "in your stead." Kaya closed her eyes.

"I guess I'll have to accept that," Kaya relented. "Just know it's going to be me who shows up if you activate the beacon."

"Of course," Yanggu nodded, another opportunity for Kaya, he thought.

"Keep safe, Yanggu, there's something wrong with Earth," Kaya said. With that she left and Yanggu untensed his muscles. Mowu had watched, still as stone before Yanggu closed the door and he relaxed.

There was a pit in his stomach that told him that Kaya wasn't going to stay put. He wondered if he should inform Ajani. He didn't like the idea of raising a stink, and they didn't need the five leaders fighting right now. He went to sleep, waiting for the sun set in Amonkhet was a folly idea.


	15. Analysis 3-1

**Analysis 3.1**

"We cleared out the storage closet for you," Grue, or I guess now Brian said. The room was clear, with only an inflatable mattress in it. "I know it isn't much now but with that two thousand you're getting as a first installment; you can start to work on getting furniture."

Not much?! I thought incredulously. Two thousand a month was probably more than my father made in a single month. That wasn't considering the…jobs that we would be pulling off.

"Thanks," I almost whispered, "I really appreciate it." I glanced over at Rachel who continued to just glare at me between the doorway, sitting at one of the tables, her dogs watched attentively. Brian followed my field of vision and changed his expression. Rachel looked away and the dogs lost focus.

"Don't mind her," Brian said, "you'll get used to her." I nodded slowly. "Come on, let's go get some food in you."

I didn't really get a say before I was half dragged out of my new room by Brian. He wasn't forceful at all, and he gave me a reassuring smile, it was oddly boyish considering how adult his face looked.

The pile of boxes was more like a tower, a monument to man's hubris. Lisa was sitting at the table within view of the large television, glancing at her laptop, a piece of pizza was already in hand. I had always considered Marcone's dough to be a higher quality than the more widespread pizza chains, and it showed, the cheese and toppings didn't slide off of the pizza as she held it in one hand. The others were already taking pieces, putting them onto styrofoam plates.

I looked at the pizza cautiously.

I bitterly noted that I hadn't eaten all day, that I hadn't even eaten dinner yesterday either. I had been waiting for my dad to get home because I wanted to cook with him.

I glanced at Rachel, who was half glaring at me, not as intensely as before. I didn't grab a slice.

"Take a piece, dork," Regent, or Alec said. My lips pursed at the name before Brian spoke again.

"What Alec is trying to say is," Brian started, "that you're a part of the team now. This is your home, and you are entitled to eat with us too." I swallowed.

"Okay," I mumbled. I cautiously picked up a piece, putting it on a plate. I must've looked so stupid treating the piece of pizza like it was going to bite me before quickly grabbing it. I noted that Rachel was now watching me intently, not glaring, just observing. I sat down next to Alec, and Brian sat next to me. Lisa was on the table, typing away at her laptop. Alec flipped a channel and for a brief moment, I thought it was an action movie, blasts of energy passing by a Spartan with a spear that seemed almost made out of electricity. I realized a second later that it was Dauntless, the rising star in the protectorate. His spear was suddenly parried by a greatsword and the spear, Arclance, I think it was called, found itself imbedded in the asphalt.

His opponent had dark grey skin, a skin tone that was absolutely not natural. They were in armor concealed by an ashen cloak, their face covered by a golden mask, I didn't see any eye sockets, instead there were two glowing circles, one right between where the eyes should have been, the other on the forehead.

Dauntless quickly raised his shield and a sphere of white light extended and his opponent leaped twenty feet back to avoid getting knocked down by it. Dauntless used this moment to free Arclance from the ground before the ashen warrior charged forward with a burst of speed.

Below the fight, I saw scrawling words:

**FIREFIGHT BETWEEN EMPIRE 88 AND COIL'S MERCENARIES ESCALATES INTO FIGHT BETWEEN PROTECTORATE AND INFINITE CONSORTIUM.**

_Another Planeswalker, _I thought. I looked at Ugin who watched from the pools of becoming.

"Do you know this one?" I asked in the Prison Realm.

_No_, Ugin admitted_, I've not seen this one before._

"Damn," Alec breathed, watching as Dauntless slowly got overwhelmed. Dauntless was good, but his opponent was on a whole different level, the skill and experience between the two was like night and day. Before long Dauntless found himself on the ground, skidding to a PRT van that had been turned over, the metal bent where he landed.

He shook his head out of a daze, probably a concussion and then the tip of the greatsword was pointed at his neck. His opponent stared at him for a brief moment before sheathing their sword and walking away.

"Damn," echoed Brian.

"I just checked online," Tattletale announced, "she goes by Nameless. She's Infinite Consortium."

"Why are the Infinite Consortium there," I asked. "Before they'd been arms dealers that gave out tinkertech to gangs. Now they're directly interfering with crimes in progress?"

"I will admit it's a bit out of character," Brian said while staring at the screen. "I've never even seen this one before, or knew she existed."

"She's showed up one other time," Lisa noted, "it was a couple of years ago, when the Infinite Consortium was on the rise, the PRT attacked a warehouse that they had been doing arms deals out of, she was there, single handedly wounded and maimed twelve PRT officers and beat both Assault and Battery."

Well, I had just found the muscle of the Infinite Consortium, though, it would be better to say that all of them were extremely dangerous in their own way.

"Have you ever met the Infinite Consortium?" I asked the group. I didn't know if they got their equipment from Tezzeret's organization or not, and maybe I was thinking that the villains were more connected to one another than they actually were. I knew, even before this news reel that Coil's faction and the Empire 88 clashed with each other more than they did the Protectorate. Brian shrugged.

"There's a meeting place for villains, a sort of neutral ground," Brian started, "I saw Satellite there, representing Tidehollow. The Infinite Consortium, as far as I know, doesn't own any territory. If you want to do business with them, they find _you_."

"That's terrifying," I said in a half mumble. As Nameless walked away she suddenly disappeared with a sound like a whip being cracked before the PRT troopers could swarm her. The channel suddenly changed, and suddenly a tyrannosaur was lifting a man off a toilet seat and shaking him in it's mouth.

"Oh, it's that Earth Aleph import," Alec noted, remote in hand. "The dinosaur one."

"Classy," Lisa said. I cautiously ate the slice of pizza, watching to make sure nobody watched me eat. I dunno, I just felt incredibly insecure about it, if there was something wrong with me, maybe I did something when eating that made me look gross.

I barely knew these people that I'd just joined up with and I didn't want to make a bad impression.

I felt relieved though that the group was more focused on the movie right now than me, though Rachel did watch me for a bit longer, before watching the movie.

Eventually I was engrossed in the movie as well.

* * *

I walked the shores of Shandalar again, with Ugin atop one of the jutting islands that waves crashed along. I knew it was an illusion, but it helped center me in my sleep. I had been restless, on an unfamiliar bed, knowing I would never get to see home again. I tried not to cry myself to sleep, I missed my dad, he might've only just gotten out of his funk, but it had meant a lot to me.

Ugin offered to bring me into an illusion, something to help my mind wander. I took it, and while I watched the tropically colored drakes dive into the waters and reemerge with fish, I started to fade off into sleep.

"Should I tell the others about you?" I asked him. Ugin was a good fifteen yards away, he was almost as big as the jutting formation he stood on. I wondered if it was capable of supporting Ugin's weight because it was simply an illusion or because Ugin himself was weightless.

_I leave that up to you, _Ugin said. _I'll advise you on my opinion but I'll leave the decision to you._

"I don't know if I can trust them with that just yet," I said. "Hell, I don't know if they'd even believe me. Surprise, I'm an apprentice wizard who gets lessons from a ghost dragon via this magical gem."

_There might be a way for me to directly communicate with them, _Ugin, _Perhaps an illusion?_

"Maybe," I mused. I considered for a moment. "Can you cast from the Spirit-Gem?"

_Yes and no, _Ugin said. _It's not so simple, otherwise when I first got here, I would've used the connection to the Spirit-Gem to dispatch my brother when he had the gem._

I heard some muttering off where the roaring ocean was. The mortal dragon couldn't touch me, so including him in the illusion hadn't been necessary.

Not that I'd wanted to see Ugin's brother, I hated him. I don't think he'd ever said a kind word to me before. So, I ignored his invisible presence and continued to walk.

"Still pretending to be one of us?" I did hear him rasp from the ocean. Ugin turned his head, to where I was guessing the solid elder dragon was. Everything was quiet for a moment. Ugin looked ready to start talking when I shook my head at him.

I needed to stand up for myself.

"I'm not pretending," I said. There was that chuckle again, like sandpaper and rolling boulders.

"Sometimes, I dream that I still have my spark," he spoke up. He appeared inside the illusion of Shandalar now, on the beach with me, he took up so much room that his right leg and forearm were still deep in the water of the illusionary beach, while his other side was directly against the cliffside. "I dream that I spread my wings across the blind eternities, and fly through it, free, unblemished my time." He looked down at his twitching wing, the hurt one that didn't work right. "But I always wake up."

That unsettled me. I didn't say anything.

"One day you'll wake up too, little girl," the elder dragon continued. I simply glared at him.

_That's enough_, Ugin said, his voice was tense, the second time I'd ever heard it raised above anything quiet. The Mortal Dragon disappeared from the view and I continued walking along the beach.

"Ugin, I think I'm going to go through with that plan," I said finally. Ugin tilted his head. "Learning lessons as I sleep. If you think about it, your brother is right in a way, this is a dream, one where I retain information, real information."

_I'm still cautious,_ Ugin said_, I don't want to push you too hard. _

"It's necessary," I said, "We have enemies all around. I need to get stronger."

He looked unsettled. Same as before.

_Very well then, _Ugin said. _We'll start tomorrow night…_

With that I woke up back on Earth. Everything was quiet, the silence was like a low rumble. It was still dark out, a night light in an electrical socket lit up the shadows of the chairs.

Every footstep I made felt like a crashing noise, but nobody was up. I exhaled and went to the bathroom and turned on the shower.

It was ice cold. It felt like I had just gone and dived into the lake. I suppressed my yelp of surprise and played with the knobs, until I got a temporary respite in the form of lukewarm water. That had only lasted a minute before once more I fought with the shower. I gave up and started just dancing around. Keeping myself active and in motion in the water would keep me from losing too much body heat.

It was still winter, and while the winters in Brockton Bay were incredibly mild, having spans of time where you wouldn't even see a snowflake, it was still cold. I didn't want to give myself hypothermia the moment I left the loft to go down stairs. I dried myself thoroughly before putting on the new clothes Lisa had gotten me. I grabbed a flashlight and exited the loft, going downstairs. It was still cold, as I put my arms in my armpits, and the breath that shuddered out of my mouth billowed like hot steam, but I knew that there were a few spiders around here. I started to call spiders to me from all around, looking mainly for black widows. I wanted to practice weaving threads, before I'd go around the neighborhood gathering spiders. I'd need to rotate them and keep them in cages, I didn't want any of my new teammates getting hurt.

Beyond that, the Black Widows that I planned on using were territorial, and would kill one another if I wasn't around. Time passed, and pale light slowly gradiated from the darkness through the abandoned factory's windows. Then I noticed someone behind me with my swarm senses.

"What are you doing down here?" It was Bitch-or Rachel. I glanced over at her, she had a leash with her three dogs, Brutus, Judas, and Angelica. Angelica seemed a bit off as far as Rachel's naming theme she had going on, maybe I'd ask her about it later.

"Working on my costume," I said, I made perfectly sure to keep them away from Rachel and her dogs, not that they would bite, but I didn't want to send the wrong message to her.

"With spiders?" Rachel asked. Something was weird, she was blunt, even abrasive in her tone, but she wasn't as aggressive as she'd been when we first met.

"Yeah," I started to explain, "they can create threads with a textile strength around Kevlar, the benefit is that it'll be way more flexible than a Kevlar suit."

"Mm," Rachel grunted with a nod. There was a minute-long awkward silence, which I didn't mind. I had the distinct feeling that one wrong move could set her off. It was still tense though, and I hoped, just a bit of small talk would help alleviate it.

"Why do you call yourself Bitch?" I asked, before wincing, realizing how bad that might sound.

"Because it's the name I chose for me," Rachel responded. I blinked at that.

"So, you'd rather be called Bitch than Hellhound because you chose the name for yourself," I asked cautiously.

"Do you have a problem with it?" she growled, gritting her teeth. I shook my head.

"Sorry, I won't ask anymore," I said quickly before concentrating back on the black widows.

"Wimp," she hissed. My hand tightened slightly, but I tried to ignore her. I didn't hear her leave, but I continued to work. She finally spoke again. "Why do you let them call you Skitter?"

I glanced back.

"What do you mean?" I asked. She looked annoyed, but she continued.

"I don't let them call me Hellhound because it's a way of controlling me," Rachel said, "by giving me a name, they get to control how my life runs. But if I name myself…well, I feel like I become my own person. So why do you let them get away with calling you Skitter?"

_No dragon would allow another to name it._

I swallowed, trying to think of a good reason.

"I guess I'm just bad at names," I replied. "So why not?" It was the truth, as far as that went.

Rachel seemed frustrated, for a moment I thought she might attack me, but then she spoke again.

"Doesn't matter if the name sucks," Rachael insisted, "It's your's."

"Alright then," I relented, "so what should my name be?"

"Don't be a dipshit," Rachel groaned, "I just said you have to come up with the name yourself." I exhaled, before nodding. She gave me an impassive look.

"Okay," I said to emphasize the point, she finally got it.

With that she just…left? I tilted my head in confusion. I shook my head and went back to working on the threads. They ran out of protein at some point so I had a few bugs walk up to them to feed them. It was morbid, I thought, but I'd need to do it if I wanted to be protected when I was doing my new job. A number of hours later, Lisa came down the spiral staircase.

"Still alive down here?" Lisa asked with a smile. I nodded.

"Yeah," I said, "had a weird talk with Rachel." Lisa frowned.

"She didn't hurt you, did she?" Lisa asked. I shook my head.

"No, she seemed less hostile to me," I explained, "she asked me about my cape name."

"Huh," Lisa grunted. I nodded. "It's good to see she's warming up to you."

"There were a few times I thought she'd sic the dogs on me," I admitted.

"She almost did, at one point, back when we first brought you in after…" She flinched. I got her meaning.

"After the night with Shadow Stalker," I said, I didn't even want to mention the rest of it. I was shoving the rest of it out of my head.

"That's why I was putting myself between you and her," Lisa said. "It…stopped an attack." That chilled me, I was this close to having been attacked by Bitch. Back when I had done research, I had come across her wiki page, I'd heard of the things she'd been capable of with her dogs.

"She almost attacked me," I said, hugging myself. Lisa walked over and patted me on the back, I looked up and she gave me that mischievous smile.

"The important part is she didn't," Lisa said. "I think it's a good start that she's talking with you to begin with."

"Really?"

"She rarely talks with any of us," Lisa noted, "much to our detriment honestly, but I don't think she does it on purpose."

"Why does she do it then?" I asked. Lisa kept quiet, instead, she smiled at me.

"That's honestly not for me to tell," Lisa said, "Rachel had a rough life though. You can imagine, right? An orphan, not well liked because of her looks, going from foster home to foster home. Then she got her powers, and things got worse for her from there." She paused, looking at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Honestly," Lisa noted, "it's a lot like your story." That gave me pause. I beckoned Lisa to continued. "They rate her as a master, but that's not entirely true. She 'roids up those dogs but they have to be trained, or they just do whatever they want. So, imagine her trigger event, she has no control over the dog and it goes apeshit."

"Oh…" I guess in a sense she was a lot like me. I glanced out the exit that Rachel had taken with her three dogs, before I sighed. "And she's been on the run ever since."

"I don't think that she's ever had a friend before," Lisa said. She patted me again. "Hey, so, Brian and I are planning on going out today, do you want to come with?"

"I was hoping to use this time to work on my costume," I said. Lisa glanced over at the army of spiders I'd called to me.

"Spidersilk?" Lisa asked. I nodded.

"It'll be flexible and durable, but probably not on par with Kevlar, if I had Darwin Bark Spiders, it could be better," I noted.

"Oh right, those new spiders discovered a couple years ago," Lisa said. "Maybe that'd be something to consider contacting the boss about. He supplies us with various tools we might need for any given job."

"Where were you guys planning on going?" I asked.

"Out and about," Brian's voice echoed. I glanced over and saw him enter into the abandoned factory, he had coffee and a bag from one of the doughnut shops in his hand. He had that boyish smile again that was enjoyable to look at. He handed me a coffee and I took it. I honestly preferred tea, but I more than welcomed the kind gesture.

"My hero," groaned Lisa as she took a cup and a bagel.

"Not on my watch," Brian joked, and I resisted the urge to flinch. I liked these people; I really did but I constantly had to remind myself they were supervillains. "We were thinking of going out for a bit of shopping today." I flinched, I didn't want to go outside, I didn't want the PRT after me. I hadn't been clearly thinking at the time, but it occurred to me that I'd been hunted down by Armsmaster, someone at one point I'd been a fan of.

It honestly hurt.

"I…"

"Mainly," Brian began, "We were hoping to get you an actual bed."

"We should get some tiny aquariums from the pet shop for your project too," Lisa said. Brian looked at Lisa quizzically. "Taylor here is building herself a costume out of Spidersilk, it'll be extremely durable."

"No shit," Brian whistled. "If it works out, in the future I might pay you to make me a costume."

That was an interesting thought to say the least. It was at least better than the alternative to committing crimes, which I was still trying to mentally steel myself for.

"I'll look into it," I said, "it occurred to me a few days after I got my powers, that I could easily use them to make a costume. So, I'll probably be working here to do that, if that's alright, I was just testing how to spin the spidersilk threads before I really get started." Brian nodded.

"I'll help if you want," Lisa said with a smile.

"What about the PRT?" I asked. "They could attack me."

"If they do," Brian said, "I'll make sure every villain in Brockton Bay knows the Protectorate is attacking people out of costume." I couldn't hold back the flinch at that. Considering the villain to hero ratio in Brockton Bay, that would actually be devastating for the Protectorate. Brian saw my expression and continued. "I wouldn't do that unless it was our only choice. I understand the necessity of the Protectorate but we couldn't just let them get away with it either."

I nodded.

"Okay," I relented. The two smiled. "What about Alec?"

"Alec's staying behind to watch the loft," Lisa said. "Plus, he just got a new game that he wants to play."

"Come on, new girl," Brian said, and we left the factory.

* * *

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it didn't happen.

I half expected that the PRT would be coming in droves when we entered the mattress shop, Armsmaster leading them with some sort of disintegration canon for my zombie bugs.

It colored the whole experience, I was tense, always checking through the senses of my swarm and bugs around to make sure everything was alright.

"Hey," Lisa smiled, "relax."

"That's not really assuring," I told her, "you've been wrong in the past." Lisa sighed.

"It's true, I'm not infallible," Lisa said, "but I'll know when someone is trying to get the drop on us."

"I'd been meaning to ask," I glanced around, the store was pretty empty actually. "What was up with the paper bags?" Brian turned away, meanwhile Lisa looked like she was about to start laughing. "What?"

"Should I tell the story?" Lisa grinned. Brian groaned. "Okay, so, we agree that in case of an emergency, we should have spare masks in the cars. So, one day, Brian goes to pick up his little sister from school, they stop at a gas station really quick, and when Brian comes back, his sister's already gone through the glove box and finds the spare masks." Brian looked absolutely embarrassed. "And that's how Brian's sister found out his big brother was a cape."

"I had a talk with her after that," he said, "so what we did instead was we got paper bags, cut out proper holes for them. It's easy to just turn them over onto the side that doesn't have holes on them. People expect to see paper bags for things like shopping so it's not entirely out of place." I nodded.

I picked out a mattress and bedframe, altogether it'd cost me around five hundred dollars. I'd learned from my dad how to scout out for the best sales and I had found what I was looking for. Not too expensive, it'd keep me comfortable, and it worked. We put the mattress in the back of the truck and went onto the pet store.

I figured it would look suspicious if I bought some twenty tiny plastic cages, so I just bought five this time around.

The whole time, I hadn't seen a trace of the PRT, I was out in public, so what was going on? They'd been gunning for me so insistently yesterday and now there was nothing.

That night in the prison realm, I started to focus my spells more. I had a better grasp now than I did before, everything was coming to me way easier.

The next morning I'd woken up, and I noticed no real strain on me. I was relieved, it made things a lot easier. I went downstairs, with my plastic cages. It was cold out and there was a bit of a raw feeling in my cheeks as I found different black widows in the neighborhood, and beckoned them into the plastic cages. I decided I could rotate the black widows around this area, keep the ones I was using at the loft in cages, but the others spread out around the neighborhood. I could gorge them and change mating habits to make more black widows if need be.

It would take a while, but I could practically turn the downstairs loft area into a secret costume factory.

The silence rung with an echo as I returned to the loft, the red light of the rising sun turned the clouds purple on an indigo shaded world. I was about to open the door when Rachel opened it first, her three dogs pouring out immediately after she opened it.

"Hi," I said. She didn't answer, choosing to instead glare at me. I sighed, glancing at her as she put her hands in her pockets letting the dogs run in front. I thought about what Lisa had told me, and while she was far more hostile than the others, I did want to get to know Rachel better. "Hey."

She turned around, annoyed.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"Where are you going?"

"None of your business," She growled. I backed up a bit. "I don't like you and I want to be left alone."

"I understand," I told her, "But if you ever need help with anything…don't be afraid to ask." She looked absolutely confused.

"Are you making fun of me?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I want to help." She glared at me for a long moment. I had to wonder, how many people had burned her, hurt her, used her. Maybe it wasn't safe to be around her, but I did in a way feel like a kindred spirit to her. Maybe she saw that too, I dunno, maybe I was just seeing things that weren't actually there.

"I'm going to my dog shelter," Rachel said. "Will you leave me alone now?"

"I can still help, if you want me to," I told her. She looked frustrated.

"Are you stupid? I don't want your help!" She yelled at me. I flinched back and she paused suddenly. She seemed to be trying to calm herself down. "What do I get out of it?"

"I'll leave you alone, I won't bother you again, I won't get in your way if I ruin your day," I said. Rachel seemed to consider it before she spoke.

"Fine," she spat. "I'll give you five minutes to put your bugs away, if you're not here by then, I'm leaving without you." I nodded, going inside to put the cages down in a hidden area, and leaving a note for the others.

I half expected Rachel to have left before five minutes, but she was still waiting when I came back. We were silent as we walked together.

A pit in my stomach told me that maybe I was making a bad decision, that maybe I was wrong, but regardless, I wanted to at least try.

I was glad I did.


End file.
